Healing From My Traumas (2-3 minute read)

It has been a long while since I last posted and it’s not because I’m ignoring you, it’s just that I’m out getting used to this “new” person that I’ve become. Not just because I found God, but because I don’t feel the fear like I used to and I feel this need to make up all the years that I lost while I was living in fear, and as you know, there were a lot of them!

If you’ve been following along, you know that I used to write every week about the challenges I encountered daily while pushing myself through the fear. It was difficult; believe me, but now that I seem to be on the other side of the fear, it’s hard to remember just how hard it was to get myself through each day. Fortunately, I wrote a lot, and I mean A LOT about the trials and tribulations surrounding post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as the fear I couldn’t seem to escape. I journalled, I wrote and posted over 165 blogs, and I published a survivor’s guide to living with PTSD…and I talked about it ALL--THE--TIME.

Thinking back, I lost a lot of friends and I know it was because I was stuck in the fear, and couldn’t figure out how to move away from it and get on with my life. It wasn’t from the lack of people telling me how to move forward, because everyone had their opinions about what I needed to do. Unfortunately telling me things like “get over it,” “forget about it,” “ignore the triggers,” etc. just weren’t helpful, until one day they were, and then all their advice hit me like a brick smashing through a glass window, and then there was nothing in me but the want to move forward.

Don’t get me wrong because for years the changes were subtle, so subtle that I thought I was standing still, but then one day it all came together for me, and I realized I had been healing a little each and every day. Each and (almost) every day, I had forcibly pushed myself to get outside of my comfort zone and it finally paid off and I found myself saying yes to invitations instead of saying no, or making excuses as to why I couldn’t go somewhere. The worst was when it was a family gathering because I wanted to see certain people, but others were such a trigger for me that I would get sick in the days/weeks leading up to it.

Fortunately, I learned to put myself, as well as my feelings, first and foremost. I also learned that I needed to move forward in my own time, and heal on my own terms – not anyone else’s. I found that these things were so important to my healing because once I stopped trying to live by someone else’s timeline, I was able to stop beating myself up about why I was having trouble moving forward. Which in turn helped me to figure out what I (me, myself), needed to do in order to heal from my trauma’s, and move forward.

What kinds of things do you do to help yourself keep moving forward? Send me an email and let me know. Stay safe, stay strong, and keep moving towards healing. Thanks for following.