Don’t Waste Your Life Trying to Get Back What was Taken From You

At the age of thirty something horrific happened to me. Actually, it was a combination of things that ended up burying me underneath an avalanche of emotional and physical pain. To this day, I still refer to it as my own personal life, 911 story. When I talk about it, it is that thing that happened that separated the before me from the today me.

It took me about seven years before I was really able to understand, accept, and release the events of that time in my life. I know now that sometimes you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time … or that the drama of those you surround yourself with can spill over and become your drama … or another individual will hurt you because they hate themselves, etc.,

Many of you had your innocence taken away from you long before you were emotionally mature. Maybe as a child you had to do things that only adults should be doing, like raising other children, emotionally caretaking for someone else, such as a parent, or having to assume the role of a parent.

I have yet to befriend a woman who hasn’t been sexually victimized at sometime in her life or who hasn’t experienced some kind of physical abuse at the hands of another. And for many of you, that event (or events) marks your own personal 911. Again, your life becomes a picture of the before and after you.

And unless the emotional healing has begun, many of you will live your life trying to get back to that other side; the side where you were still innocent, free, unashamed, happy, and open. I’ve learned through the process of healing that there is a process. I’ve learned that anger, denial, acceptance, bargaining, and depression are consistent companions during such times.

And although some of them are not the most attractive companions, they can end up being blessings in disguise if you don’t give up trying to get over that mountain of misery that has put you in complete darkness. The truth is there is no going back to being the person you were before your tragedy. This thing that happened, happened. And it can’t be undone. However, it can be seen for what it is in the light of your awareness that comes during the healing process.

Instead of spending your energies trying to recapture what could’ve been, should not have been, or might have become, exercise the power you have as a survivor and give your body and mind the permission it needs to heal from emotional and physical trauma. If you do it now, then you won’t have to spend the rest of your life in the dark with only your pain as your one and true companion.