The end is the place where I have been for a long time. The healing is over and whatever scar tissue remains is not a reminder of the past, but instead a kind of talisman or a touchstone reminding me of the self I reclaimed on my journey.
The journey never ends, of course, because life continues to happen and there will always be new obstacles or new pains or new struggles to deal with: Those things are a part of everyone’s lives. I think the end is perhaps defined by those moments when you recognise that instead of each new problem sending you rushing back into the often self-destructive defenses of your past, you have actually drawn on the resources that you learned when you were trapped there.
Doesn’t that sound quite blissful? Always finding some strength with which to combat any adversity that comes your way? What I just said is true.
But isn’t really like that.
Because the other moments which perhaps define the end are when you fuck everything up monumentally, and don’t handle anything at all. And then you recognise that these fuck-ups are completely your own; they aren’t regressions into self-defense, they aren’t abreactions, and even if they are inappropriate reactions to whatever the circumstances are, wherever they came from in your psyche it wasn’t that trauma.
The end is when the trauma has lost its hold over you, when you can think about it without crying, screaming, freezing, shaking, cutting, starving, or whatever else it is that you do to try and keep control. The end is when you can go days, or weeks or months or even years without thinking about it at all, not because you are avoiding it, not because you have managed to handcuff it to a chair in the back of your mind, but because you are busy living your life. Whether that life is going wonderfully or that life is difficult, that life is all yours and, knowing what you had to go through to get it.. That is your talisman.
And again I say… Doesn’t that sound blissful?
But it isn’t really like that.
That talisman, that pride, is not a constant light, always there for you in dark hours. Well, it is, but sometimes you’ll argue with it and say it is a lie; you’ll tell yourself you aren’t strong, or that it isn’t your responsibility, or that you’ve wasted what you fought for. You might even tell yourself that you aren’t really better, that you haven’t dealt with your history at all. That you were just deluded. Because sometimes you need to be weak, or angry, or sad and you won’t always want the burden a-life-completely-your-own is. Because everybody feels like that sometimes, not just survivors. We are human, and messy, and we need rest.
Still, it is always there waiting when you are ready to take up arms again, and even when that doesn’t feel true you can hold onto it doggedly, stubbornly, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, with what will feel like blind faith but isn’t. Because you did actually do that. You did actually take back your life.
And even if you aren’t t the finish line yet, you are doing it right now. Every single inch that you have clawed your way through, screaming and bleeding, every single feeling of hopelessness, every single day that you can’t even imagine there will be an end… That is you doing it. Know that, and let that be your talisman.
You’ve said it perfectly.
And you won’t realise you’ve reached the finish line until you suddenly think to look behind you one day and spy it some distance in the past and when you probe the issue, like you did when you were a kid with a sore tooth, you’ll find nothing remains except the memory.
Oh it is so like that sore tooth thing! Lol. I should have gotten you to write this post. It would have been shorter.
What a wonderful day that will be to look back on that day where there are no more issues, no more hurt, no more anger to deal with.
Beautifully put.
I just can’t tell you how tickled I was to see you back blogging again. Yippeee!
I love the way you write. This is another amazing, insightful and honest post. Thanks so much for sharing it with us and I’m doubly grateful that you allowed us to use it for The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. Hope you are well. Take care!
It will come, Patricia. I promise you.
And thank you Heath & Marj. xx