Out for a walk a year ago, a man who had sexually harassed me in the past approached me on the street. That incident set me on a course I hadn’t intended, unearthing dark recesses I had spent a lifetime burying. That evening triggered me so significantly, it caused a severe psychological shift. In the weeks that followed I laid myself bare, inviting in those I held closest to my heart. We had difficult conversations. Words that were as uncomfortable to say, as I’m sure they were to hear. Some still haven’t heard them, because they couldn’t, and I don’t blame them. I’m not good at being vulnerable, anything that makes me feel weak, or pitied, or less, is unwelcome. I’ve fought hard throughout my adulthood to regain control, to keep my mentality as far away from victimhood as humanly possible. I am not the things that were done to me. I am not the things that were taken from me. What I am is how I face reality. What I am is how I choose to move forward. It took that night of fear, of crying, of shaking, of rocking myself back and forth through waves of nausea to finally accept that I wasn’t okay. That I hadn’t faced my deepest traumas. That despite my best efforts to erase my past, it had full control over my life the entire time. I kept people as distant physically as I did emotionally. I smiled, and laughed, and hugged, and went through all the motions of a shiny, happy person, so skillfully detached I could sometimes trick myself into believing I was her. But there would always come a touch, a sound, an image, a conversation, to remind me that wasn’t the case. I am not yet healed. I have not yet worked through all the damage that was done. But since that evening I decided I didn’t want to hide from the full human experience any more. I have spent the last year working on being more transparent, more open. Trying desperately to convince myself that light can overshadow darkness, that not everyone will hurt me. Allowing myself to fail and succeed in those attempts, has been a struggle at times, but giving myself the space to feel, and hurt, and grow without ridicule lets forward motion resume eventually. That is the best any of us can do. Keep moving forward. 🖤
