0
Users
0
Views
0
Reactions
0
Stories read
For immediate help, visit {{resource}}
Made with in Raleigh, NC
Read our Community Guidelines, Privacy Policy, and Terms
Have feedback? Send it to us
Original story
Healing means resilience
Warning this post could be triggering and very deep and hard to read. I am writing this post with the heaviest heart. I am tired and I don’t mean like getting in bed and sleeping tired. I mean, physically mentally emotionally and spiritually tired and drained. I am 28 years old. I will be 29 next month and my life has at least been full of over 20 years of immense, deep trauma. I grew up with no parents. My dad left my mom when I was one years old when my brother died and never came back, but maybe one time my whole life until he became a cold case when I was about 10. My mom had four other children all different fathers two of them who had the same dad who was sexually abusing me at the age of six and seven and once they split up my mom gave up everybody to their dad’s while dragging me through the worst things, a child should have ever endured. She nonstop, abandoned me, leaving me at houses with random people for weeks and even months at a time either being sexually abused or physically abused once again. Leaving me at her mother’s house to be physically abused to the point where I couldn’t handle it and would leave to my friend’s mom’s houses because if I didn’t, I would go days without being in school because of how badly I was being beaten. Still my mom never showed up and when she did, it was only because I have been gone at my friends for so long but once she found me there and someone’s parent would say she’s OK here all she would do is get back in the car and leave for weeks or months again. My mom has been on drugs since she was a teenager. Methamphetamines. A very bad alcoholic. Shooting up smoking. Inhaling whippet cans since she was young. Anything she can get her hands on that blurred her vision of being a mother or a protector. Luckily my siblings had their fathers and families to step up and take care of them all their lives because we are now all in our late 20s but that still doesn’t make up for the abandonment and pain that they went through not having a mother their whole life, but I’m extremely grateful they didn’t have to endure the trauma and pain that came with being stuck with her. I became pregnant at 15 1/2 almost 16 years old not knowing anything about motherhood, but hoping that means maybe I’ll have a family or somebody who my life will finally matter to but unfortunately, that was not the case. It just added more trauma and more pain on my heart. I had my oldest son. And by that time I had gotten myself into a little bit of juvenile trouble so the system finally stepped in realizing I had no parents or guardians around. One day I was just so tired. I just begged the judge to take me away from my mom and send me and my son to somewhere safe so I can have a roof over our head and have some type of structure or stability for me and him at only 17. That was one of the worst things I could’ve ever done or asked for. In the moment, I thought the system was going to save me, but all it did was fail me and my child. About a year later when I was staying in one of the foster homes I was human trafficked and left fighting for my life for two days trying to get back to my son. In the time being you’re not allowed to leave the property or the county so to the juvenile system, it looked like I violated the rules and they took me back into custody, not knowing that I was just traffic and forced to leave my son. By that time I was over 18 and they made me sit in juvenile hall until my 19th birthday when I was a legal adult so they can release me onto the streets because I was finally legally an adult. I still remember the day that I got released like it was yesterday. I still remember all of this like it was yesterday. They released me with nowhere to go. No one to call having to find where my son was staying at so I can take him back no food no money no resources. I’ve been so lost since I was a child. I didn’t even know how to function in the world I didn’t know how to get a job. I didn’t know how to ask for help. I didn’t know how to go back to school. I didn’t know the importance of my life or what I can make of it. All I knew is I was stuck being forced into survival mode once again. Fast forward to now knowing that maybe I can learn how to sell my body since I had been trafficked and maybe that would keep a roof or food over my head and keep me independent since all I had was myself at 19 . Still lost. Still hurting and still no protection or guidance. Still alone. Having another child once again at 21 thinking it would save me. But it didn’t all it did was give me a break out of survival mode for a couple years and then Life still whooped my ass for the following years down the line selling my body being raped over and over trying to just survive and save myself from the drowning deep pool of pain and trauma. It was up until about 3 years ago when I started to fight for my life back from all the hands of my abusers. I didn’t want to be a victim any more. I wanted to be a survivor. I decided to not traumatize and put that trauma onto my children that my parents had once put on myself. I decided to heal them instead of putting the pain that I have onto them. This was when I was around I don’t know maybe 27 when I decided to go back to school and try to fight so hard to figure out what I’m supposed to do with life, even though I was never showed or guided on how to do that. I gave up survival mode and got out of survival mode because it was the most traumatizing mode to be stuck in. I’m not perfect. I’m still healing but with two years of therapy going back to school to get my diploma so I can go to college and have a career and healing my children and showing them what fighting for your life looks like and showing them that you do not have to accept certain people or pain into your life showing them what a mother and protector is and showing them stability finally has been my everything the past 2 to 3 years. Around last year I gave up selling my body because I couldn’t do it anymore because it was just so draining and it just felt like it was keeping me stuck in a survival mode so once I released that and promised myself I would never go back no matter how hard it gets. It has been so much more healing. I wrote a letter to my mother just the other week and met up with her reading it and telling her everything, forgiving her and finally making a decision to keep her out of me and my children’s lives because of all the pain and trauma she has caused and will continue to cause because of her drug addictions and unhealthy choices. I have chose protection over me and my children. But some days while I’m sitting here, drowning in bills, drowning in keeping a place over our head, which I’ve done a good job at renting somewhere to keep over our head the past two years and keeping my car and keeping all the bills taken care of keeping us in school keeping us not bouncing from house to house giving us some stability. Still doesn’t take away from these really really hard mentally draining days that I have because of my severe PTSD and severe trauma replaying in my head over and over again feeling so helpless and empty because I’m all I have. I don’t know how to keep going, but somehow I do. I’m so strong it’s insane. Even on the hardest days that I really don’t think I will survive I still do. I don’t have a support system. I don’t have family. I don’t keep men around me. I don’t have friends because they were not healthy. It is me and my kids. The people we live with who are 100% separated no contact just room mating no family unless it’s my second son’s family helping which would be taking him from time to time like summer or something to help. Both of their fathers are 100% not in the picture and haven’t been for years also battling drug addictions. no calls no text no asking if they’re alive no money no child support no nothing. Grieving my father‘s mother so badly because I reconnected with her about five years ago and got so close to her took care of her helped her with every single thing you can think of just for her to pass a couple months ago when I was getting so close to her I finally felt like I had real blood family. Her and my boys were my motivation my grandma was my world. I finally had somebody just to watch her die right in front of me and now that I can’t even burry or cremate because I’m all the family or any one she had as well it kills me. I just don’t understand why God has punished me over and over again. I’m trying to figure out my purpose for life other than my two children. I am deeply wounded and I’m getting so far and doing so much better than I once was a few years ago but I’m just stuck at a standstill right now. I’m so confused and I don’t know what to do. And honestly, I don’t even know why I’m writing this. I just feel like maybe I’ll be heard. I want to just be HEARD! Or maybe you guys can send some positivity and it will snap me out of this dark place that I’m in when I’m all alone and my kids are at school and things hit me. I know this all seems like a lot, but unfortunately, this is just the surface level of the deepest things I’ve been through. This isn’t even everything. But I know if I keep going when I look back, it will all be worth it. I just wish I knew when that would be.
You have a comment in progress, are you sure you want to discard it?
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate
0
Users
0
Views
0
Reactions
0
Stories read
For immediate help, visit {{resource}}
For immediate help, visit {{resource}}
Made with in Raleigh, NC
|
Read our Community Guidelines, Privacy Policy, and Terms
|
Please adhere to our Community Guidelines to help us keep Our Wave a safe space. All messages will be reviewed and identifying information removed before they are posted.
Grounding activity
Find a comfortable place to sit. Gently close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths - in through your nose (count to 3), out through your mouth (count of 3). Now open your eyes and look around you. Name the following out loud:
5 – things you can see (you can look within the room and out of the window)
4 – things you can feel (what is in front of you that you can touch?)
3 – things you can hear
2 – things you can smell
1 – thing you like about yourself.
Take a deep breath to end.
From where you are sitting, look around for things that have a texture or are nice or interesting to look at.
Hold an object in your hand and bring your full focus to it. Look at where shadows fall on parts of it or maybe where there are shapes that form within the object. Feel how heavy or light it is in your hand and what the surface texture feels like under your fingers (This can also be done with a pet if you have one).
Take a deep breath to end.
Ask yourself the following questions and answer them out loud:
1. Where am I?
2. What day of the week is today?
3. What is today’s date?
4. What is the current month?
5. What is the current year?
6. How old am I?
7. What season is it?
Take a deep breath to end.
Put your right hand palm down on your left shoulder. Put your left hand palm down on your right shoulder. Choose a sentence that will strengthen you. For example: “I am powerful.” Say the sentence out loud first and pat your right hand on your left shoulder, then your left hand on your right shoulder.
Alternate the patting. Do ten pats altogether, five on each side, each time repeating your sentences aloud.
Take a deep breath to end.
Cross your arms in front of you and draw them towards your chest. With your right hand, hold your left upper arm. With your left hand, hold your right upper arm. Squeeze gently, and pull your arms inwards. Hold the squeeze for a little while, finding the right amount of squeeze for you in this moment. Hold the tension and release. Then squeeze for a little while again and release. Stay like that for a moment.
Take a deep breath to end.