28. Relief!

Dec 4, 2019

4 min read

Updated: Oct 18, 2023

**Please note: In this post, I do not write about specific traumas. I never write any explicit details.**

Facing Down Phase Two

Almost two decades. That's how long the second phase of my life, filled with hurt, self-doubt, and struggle, lasted after sexual assault. It was an event in my life that literally took place within one calendar day, yet it filled up my schedule well beyond that day, way past that week, eons farther than that month, and what felt like an eternity past that year. For years, fear was a nearly constant background soundtrack to my life. Beneath any laugh or smile, there lived a panic that, while not always fully active, was just a moment's notice away from surfacing.

Part of the reason why recovery has taken me so much time, effort, and such a large volume of aid is related to the almost direct opposition I faced from PTSD. I saw everything through my trauma glasses, so it all looked like a world of terror, and it traumatized me even more. This meant that attempting to recover from a single event rapidly shifted into recovery from multiple moments after it that read similarly to my traumatized brain and body, and then a sea of those moments. It not only kept me in an easily panicked state, but as a result of the way my brain interpreted stimuli after sexual assault, it also painted subsequent life events in the color of the original trauma.

I thought being able to end my fright meant I needed to reach a point of believing myself to be unassailable. It seemed an unattainable task, being that I am mortal, to convince myself that I could somehow be perpetually protected from anything bad ever happening again. I would need some sort of magic to enact that type of miracle. Yet, as I didn't have access to any fairy dust, I wondered how I could ever truly calm down my unrest to the point that it no longer dominated my life. If I couldn't eliminate all the horrible sexual traumas, and they continued to happen in the world, how could I ever stop dreading them?

The Taste Of Freedom

And now! And now, I can't even take in the magnitude of what I'm about to write. I have finally made it through to the other side. The reign of PTSD from sexual trauma has reached closure, and I am finally free! My Phase Two, with all of the agonizing conflict, panic, and fear, is history. I've stepped into Phase Three, and it's more amazing already than I could have imagined.

The moment it happened, I fully realized that something epic was taking place. I could hear symbols crashing inside my head, and by the time they finished, the words, "It's over," were actually true. I saw through my mind's eye that where I was in that present moment was a new place, and that where I had just been moments before, which still held what was left of the traumatic destruction, was getting farther and farther away from me by the second, as if being pulled off into the distance on some sort of conveyor belt away from me. And most importantly, I actually felt in my body that something had finally shifted and there was a type of calm that was surprising, relieving, and abundant with opportunity.

What does freedom taste like? Possibility! My fearfulness used to be the dominant flavor which infused everything in my life for so long. Surprisingly, it turns out that the opposite of my fear isn't confidence, it's the feeling of options. Now that alarms aren't running my life, it's not that I think that nothing bad can happen. The difference is that now, I believe so much more readily than before that good things can happen. The focus of my attention has shifted from attending to the negative to igniting the positive. Bad things could still happen, and I still hate that, but I also now know that I am capable of healing. I might not currently be able to prevent further sexual traumas, but I'm only just beginning my work toward that goal of making this world a safer place for everyone.

Relief is an understatement. I feel ecstatic! I've come to know that I am resilient, and that I am able to do the challenging work it takes to dismantle every wrong message I had previously internalized about myself. I'm absolutely a survivor, and I carry that with me moving forward, as I remind myself and other survivors of the tremendous feats we are capable of accomplishing. Every survivor has been through hell and deserves to reach this place of personal peace. I will continue to work toward supporting survivors along healing journeys. I will continue to champion my teammates racing through their own personal versions of that damn maze that I had to make my way through to get here. Liberation is decadent, and I want each and every survivor to get to savor it.

#MeToo

#Liberation