Healing

No one ever tells you that when you heal from trauma, you’re never really healed. It’s amazing how you put in the work, learn to love yourself, learn to be happy, and yet there are still those triggers that pull you right back.

My journey started after 7 years with a man who verbally abused and manipulated me. I married him even though deep down I knew I shouldn’t. Six months after a year and a half marriage turned to divorce…I made the mistake of jumping into a relationship too quickly.

He said all the right things, and needed me in all the ways my ex husband never did. But eventually I found myself feeling more like his mother than his partner. When I needed him most, he was busy lying to another woman and charming his way into her pants.

I wish I could say I walked away at that point but I forgave him and still tries to make things work. The problem was I was still the only one trying to make it work.

When eventually I did walk away from him I chose myself. I did the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I worked on me, put myself first and found a pretty awesome person inside.

It was hard because I had spent nearly half of my life believing every bad horrible thing I’d been told, never feeling good enough. I could count on one hand the number of times I looked in the mirror and thought I was pretty.

But I fought back, I chose to be brave and to do things alone. Things I enjoyed or wanted to do, regardless of whether someone was with me. In doing so I found that I didn’t need anyone to make me happy. In fact I really cherished the times that no one needed anything from me. I knew in that moment I was going to be ok. For the first time in my 36 years of life, I felt good about myself, I knew who I was. Not who everyone said I was or expected me to be.

Then something unexpected happened, I found myself falling in love with someone in a way I could not explain. The closer I got to him, and the stronger my feelings have grown, the more I find myself triggered.

There are days when I can’t look at myself in the mirror again. When I worry I will say or do the wrong thing. Something that pushes him away. Or proves I am all those things I was told I was.

No one tells you that when you heal, you’re never fully healed. No one tells you the hardest part of overcoming trauma is learning how to maintain a healthy relationship when you find one.

There’s a balance between leaning on your partner and falling into patterns of codependency. Which with a healthy relationship risks pushing that person away. The overthinking gets so loud sometimes it breeds jealousy and fear.

When you’ve never been loved in a healthy way, it’s foreign and scary. It feels too good to be true, and you risk sabotaging something good.

I don’t know how this journey will end, or whether I will ever truly be healed. But I know how much I love him, and I will fight like hell to make it work. Even if the fight is with my own internal wounds.

In that battle though, I will keep learning how to love myself and not lose who I am again. That I think is the hardest and most vital battle of all.

I’m not sure if anyone will read this, but I hope if there is someone that is struggling too, that this gives you hope. You’re not alone.

Choosing to pursue someone and to join together in a relationship means allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable means leaving yourself open to being hurt. Choosing to let your guard down again after healing from trauma is as difficult as walking away from those that hurt us.

My journey is not over yet, and as vulnerable as I am, I choose love. Love for the me that was buried for so very long under criticism, expectations and abuse. But also love for this man that actually truly loves me for me. Without expectations.