There comes a time when you become tired of being the victim. The question then becomes, ‘how do you make that transition when you don’t even know how deep those connections are?’ I’m sure there are many clinical or professional definitions for what is classified as a traumatic event.  I’m not going to validate or challenge any of those here.  Instead, I’ll give you my definition… For me, trauma is something that breaks you, tears you down.  It dumps you into a black abyss of loneliness.  It is the chains from which you never know if you will break free.  It is not knowing if you’ll breathe easy again.  It is the nights you don’t close your eyes because you’re afraid of what you’ll see.  It is the days when you don’t want to wake up because your reality has become too painful.  It’s the tears of violation, loss, anger, disbelief, question, sadness and hurt.  It can take away your dreams, your confidence, your vitality, your trust in others, and your willingness to share any part of yourself… If you let it. It’s not just in the dark corners of your memory where those events live and breathe.  They can become spiders who crawl out from the darkness and weave intricate webs touching more pieces of your everyday life than you ever realized was possible.  The thing about a spider’s web is that many times you don’t know it’s there; not until you walk into one of the invisible strands.  And if you’re like me, you become a ninja fighting an invisible sticky thread that crossed your path, frantically looking for the spider and trying the pull the web, often becoming more entangled.  Many times, we avoid the areas known for encountering these webs, those shady places no one likes to venture into. There comes a time when you become tired of being the victim.  There is a day when you are ready to make the disconnect from what you were molded into believing and what is actually true.  The question then becomes, ‘how do you make that transition when you don’t even know how deep those connections are?’ To be vulnerable is to step out from behind the walls you created; they protect you but they also isolate you.  I have spent much of my life building and defending those walls.  Eventually, I became tired of being confined to a truth that was not mine.   Sure, I could describe my spiders in detail, and tell you all the ways a web can be woven far and wide.  Instead, I decided to share how I brought sunlight into some of those once dark corners of my soul, and how I continue to step out of the shadows into the light – each time, a painfully beautiful transition of release, self-acceptance, and compassion. Once you experience a traumatic event, you seem to develop a harsher attitude towards life, towards others.  You hear others talk about the difficulty in their life and think “please, you don’t know what hard is.”  What they complain about sounds so petty in comparison, and they just don’t know.  No one ever will understand, because they haven’t walked in your shoes.  I get it.  I’ve been in that mindset.  Sometimes, out of habit, I catch myself starting to return to those thoughts. So when do you become free?  When you stop asking questions like “why me? What did I do? How is this fair? What was the purpose?”  You become free when you stop defining yourself with the event.  Even to say “I am a survivor of (fill in the blank)” links yourself with all the connotations associated with being a victim because now you are letting it be known that it did not break you, it did not destroy you.  You remind yourself of all you have overcome.  You remind yourself of how much pain and fear you were able take. Instead, try saying “I have experienced the emotions of rape, abuse, etc.”  The physical aspect was done and over the moment your body healed.  It is the emotional and mental effects that hold onto you.  How will you know when those corners are safe to go into, when they are no longer dark and instead shine a beautiful light? For me, it was realizing that I didn’t need to forgive myself because I was not to blame.  It was when my story was no longer harder or more difficult than yours.  It was the moment that I was no longer entitled to feel more or deeper than you because I was no longer angry.  The freedom came when I could wrap a blanket of love around you and hear the rawness of your story without trumping it with my own.  Not because I have to, but because I know you need to be heard, your feelings acknowledged for the depth they hide in, and for your soul to be respected as the beautiful being you are. Freedom came when I became thankful for the ability to experience such raw emotions, for they have opened my heart to a new awareness and a deeper compassion for others.  For me, that is true freedom.   Until your moment arrives, I offer a blanket of love and compassion to wrap around your soul.  Maybe by reading this, you can start to find your freedom. Views:]]>