Real Recovery

Another real talk post y’all (:

I’ve talked about what happened to me & you’ve all seen my stories and posts since then about Sexual assault awareness and I’m sure it’s uncomfortable, (That’s kind of the point.) Now I just want to share about mental health and my experience with healing from the trauma. I really think everyone can relate to mental health struggles at least at some point in their life. I honestly never had a full understanding or empathy for it until it became a real struggle for me and I’m sorry it took me experiencing SO many lows to understand how hard life is for so many people.

I thought I had a good handle on who I am. I thought I had things figured out as far as my path with God. I thought I knew all the keys to happiness. I thought I was too strong to struggle lol (:

Honestly I did have a good handle on a lot of those things for the time. But life changes. Hard things happen. We get busy. People die. Or leave. We mess up. We get lonely. Depression hits. Old traumas arise. People hurt us. And suddenly we don’t know everything we thought we knew.

I’ve had a hard time accepting how much I’d been affected By what happened to me. The trauma changed me; that’s ok. But some of those changes were things I liked in the old me and didn’t like in the new me.

Here’s some of the realities of where I’ve been at. Not sharing for pity!! but because I’m starting to get excited about where I’m going!

The Week of the Trauma: Just processing. my aunt & uncle and best friends were keeping me glued together.

Months 1-2 PTSD. New insecurities and distrust surface. I was easily irritated. I felt so much shame. I learned thing that I didn’t want to know about myself. It turns out I am not capable of handling anything and everything with grace and strength and positivity.

Month 3: I cried a lot. In fact almost every time I was alone. Who knew I was capable of that much emotion, let alone tears. I didn’t want to live.

Months 4-6: Really sucked and I started having more serious questions and doubts in my faith/ relationship with God.

Month 7: I had some come to Jesus talks. I received some painful news about my legal case. I’ve felt more consistent, hopeless anger than I thought was possible for me. And I also feel like I have been able to take on life with a healthy perspective and a greater capacity for handling what’s really too hard. I’ve started to feel peace. I’m not talking about the fun moments or the few “good days” I’m talking about more happy days than sad days:) I’m talking about feeling real hope that lasts longer than an hour or a day. I’m talking about feeling like I actually know who I am and feeling like I may belong. Feeling excited about the things that used to excite me. Feeling like when I meet someone I can look them in the eye and they won’t be able to sense my brokenness. I believe I can keep healing. I believe we can make positive changes in our society, culture & legal system. I now believe that it CAN get better like people tell me. I’m not better. I still have a ways to go. But I am getting better.

I also have to say that I’m writing this from a good mental place. I’ve felt tangible healing & that’s why I can have this positive perspective. If you’re not there yet, please know that’s ok. I couldn’t have been paid to spit out this kind of positive life outlook for a while there. But somehow I’ve started feeling better though I TRULY truly believed I would never even feel ok again.