Monthly Archives: June 2019

Jun27

Thoughtful Thursday #261 – I Get It

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I Get It

 

I get the unspeakable shame and emotional pain and trauma of child abuse as a child and adult child. I get how you want to hurt yourself just to stop the pain and self-sabotage because you have no healthy sense of direction. I get it. Let’s talk about what creates trauma. Let’s talk about it without judgement. Let’s talk about how trauma and it’s buddies that keep you stuck.

Let’s talk about mental health, alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness. As we speak openly about these struggles of ours and those we know, the power of alcoholism, drug addiction and mental illness become manageable. Talk to everyone about how important mental health is and that ending the suffering is possible, talk to therapists, go to 12 step programs, and go to groups that are struggling with what you are struggling with, find your supporters, show up for your own recovery.

You may not be validated as you speak out and that is OK, keep looking for those who are supportive of you. Go no contact with those who are actively self-destructive. It is perfectly OK to protect yourself. It’s OK to search for what you need; it’s OK to search for meaning and making sense of your life. It’s OK to heal; it’s OK to take your time in recovery.

Recovery is not quick and most clichés that suggest quick fixes are victim blaming and not realistic. It takes a long time to relearn trust and un-blend the destructive false beliefs from your thinking.

Start now, start when you are ready, start when you are scared and unsure, just start, you are so worthy of a wonderful life.

Jun20

Thoughtful Thursday #260 – Recovery

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Any recovery journey is really about taking care of yourself – you can’t take care of others without taking care of yourself first. You can’t make sense of your circumstances until you take the step to be good to yourself and examine what is going on.

Recovery from anything is to look at yourself without judgement or criticism but rather with curiosity and compassion.

We must learn about those deeply hidden secrets we keep from ourselves, and uncover their origin.

Recovery is about looking at yourself and comforting yourself as you cry buckets of tears, as you express anger, as you throw your fists up a the incredible injustices you have endured.

After all this expression, over and over, you come out on the other side-instead of crying there’s compassion, instead of anger there is peace, instead of raging at injustice you are living a life of justice.

In my life I get why my high functioning father became so cruel and hateful and addicted to drugs and alcohol – his childhood was horrible – males and females were addicts and alcoholics and he was illegitimate. I get that my mother was a high functioning schizophrenic and so was her mother, my mother was a mess.

She and my father were ill equipped to be parents or decent human beings.  They lived their lives enjoying cruelty and being surrounded with those who were the same. They died without ever recovering and no acknowledgement of their disgusting display of hatred towards me or anyone else. I was the scapegoat until their very last breath.

I get it. I don’t condone it – it was not OK on any level and sadly there was no changing them.

So as painful as it was I had to journey alone and for a very long time in my own trauma recovery. My message to you is recovery is very possible.

Recovery will require that you commit to creating a better life for yourself. You will have to show up to therapy, groups of like minded folks, crying, writing, grounding your emotions, all one day at a time. Sometimes it’s one breath at a time.

You deserve a wonderful life, you deserve to be cared about. You deserve to be safe, You deserve to be heard. You deserve to be respected. You deserve to be loved and don’t let any negative person or internal false belief tell you otherwise.