This week has been challenging. My family is transitioning back into roles that we used to do differently. Transitions are always difficult for me.

I’m now far more solo with cancer stuff and I’m still sick (and now have Covid) so my fear is something I have to barrel through. I am worn down, lonely, and tired of succeeding while looking at the same four walls and confused pets.

My war-torn kiddo is in her senior year of college & all of the feelings that go with school; graduation, her future, and — the mom she stopped her life for to make sure she could ONLY worry about life-saving things that were so obligatory — the drive to succeed was always force-felt by all.

A lot of cancer and ugly diagnoses made me have to barrel through feelings I hate but had to decide not to honor because I HAD to survive. Survival mode is very black & white.

That is placing me at risk of growing a callous to how difficult everyday life is for everyone else.

This is also very hypocritical of me because I know full well how difficult real, everyday life is; period.

That is something I need to put in check IMMEDIATELY because, before long; I’ll be the person who compares traumas like traumas are comparable.

I could be at risk of becoming like one of the people I disrespect the most in the world because I think I get to own the label of Trauma Queen so my story shall ALWAYS be worse.

I know someone like that and removed them from my life for that very reason. Nothing felt like camaraderie with equal sharing and caring.

They felt like they were in an “I have it worse” competition they needed to win so I rarely spoke about what felt like it was destroying me.

I do not want to be that kind of person.

We only exist in the human experience with the human experiences we’ve had and the empathy we have in us because of our nature & nurture.

We only can imagine what we can imagine and another person’s lifetime of triggers is something that is often just another story; especially when the story is spoken of freely on the internet.

If I skirted around certain trauma issues, people would know that certain topics or people are VERY touchy for me.

I usually talk about trauma events like I’m asking someone to pass me a napkin. Because I speak loosely of them instead of FEELING them out loud (or with my behavior) in a way others know is touchy — people don’t always know what my triggers are.

That is the risk of the overly analytical, but under treated PTSD champs. We intellectualize events that broke our foundation.

Our emotions are removed for many reasons; survive, sometimes report, sometimes testify, sometimes educate, and sometimes write books about. Always, always, to support others by sharing; though.

Some severely hurt people diverge into dissociative identities because their trauma snapped them in a way that they utterly needed to protect themselves because no one else did. Those people get mocked like they just couldn’t take it on the chin. I think they’re so brave, especially when they share.

Many kind people do not act out in a way that ends up smoking crack or drinking hand sanitizer while their mind’s break thinking they were more unscathed than they were. Some people; you’d never guess how badly they hurt when they’re alone — unless they’re you.

Some hide their shame or hurt themselves inadvertently or very openly. Sometimes just mentioning that it happened more than a few times makes that person feel like their God must hate them because they are unforgiving.

Some get too tired of thinking about it at all and make decisions they can’t return from. I’ve never felt that feeling, but I know how badly I’ve wanted my physical pain to not exist anymore. I’m grateful I haven’t wrestled with THAT feeling. I want so much for my future.

I tried to speak of my forgiveness before I fully understood what occurred to forgive. I just knew I was hurting myself in ways no one but my spouse knows and needed help and “Jesus loves the little children.” That is who I heard about and He didn’t throw rocks.

If trauma doesn’t get immediately wrapped up in unconditional love, belief, acceptance; I think the damage done by the support system can be even more detrimental than the damage done by the abuser.

As a mental health advocate; I’ve seen too many patients glimpse over a massive trauma in their story telling — only to ruminate on how the “coverup” was so much worse.

The cover up is almost always worse than the crime, even in how we choose to mishandle outside traumas in our own life. The coverup is the need for everything to remain exactly as it is, even though nothing will ever be the same again for somebody.

The need for homeostasis why we remember everyone’s first reactions:

•Someone’s Immediate Need to Verify
•“I can’t believe …”
•“Are you sure you’re telling the truth? •“A man’s entire reputation is on the line.”

—or—
•(Utter silence & no more levity since you’re now dirty or broken.)

Ignorance is bliss if bliss is hell that hasn’t slept much since it decided to pick a random boy from the school bus to give her virginity to so a 48 year old man didn’t take it from her when she was 12.

That overthinker then knew that control mattered and I had none. That same overthinker decided, at that time, to always have to end her tasks on the left side, including chewing.

The overthinker then started to count her food and would always have to count her food before she ate it to make sure she ended on the left side because suddenly she felt very unsettled if THAT control was removed now, too.

The act of losing my virginity was done very much in secret, but not without much help. My neighbor “friend” called him. He rode his bike from the rich neighborhood to ours. I lost my virginity on my friend’s mom’s waterbed. It was so cold.

I had never used a tampon before. I had only ever seen the body of a gray-haired, bearded trucker.

The event was so painful that I didn’t “pop” anything; I was torn up.

Pelvic pain has been the only feeling I’ve ever had in my pelvis. I’m grateful to have found a specialist that diagnosed me with Stage 4 endometriosis and intestinal adhesions so I can freely get treatment now; unashamed.

My tailbone broke when I was 12. Instead of telling my parents; who I told of every boo-boo, I never told anyone because “he” crawled on top of me that night and I could barely speak words out loud until after we returned to school from Christmas break.

Every time my bottom hurts or I have to change position; I have to try to forgive my child monster again.

Since I told you I like to hide triggers: Allow me to tell you what triggers I openly try to dishonor now:

Abandonment

Needing to prove myself because someone decides their lack of trust means others lie, and

People making promises that they do not keep or made loosely & didn’t mean.

Some are triggers because I became a human. Some are triggers because I MADE a human.

Now you have my weaknesses in black and white. I’ve exposed it every time I’ve written. The difference between the me who denied how hurt her hurt hurt THEN and the me that has hurt now —

I am not alone and my “weaknesses” are protected by an armor of actual love and forgiveness. You can’t cut what is not at risk of being damaged anymore by someone else’s opinion of a person they never really knew fully, in the first place.