Trauma Memoirs

"FUUUUUUUCKKKKKKK"

I screamed at the top of my lungs, tears streaming down my face. I looked insane, without a doubt, and the faces of the people at the beach confirmed that.

Why am I crying and screaming profanities in the void? Well, it is part of the process. At least, that is what my group therapy leader says. It is a tool, along with this journal, and I came to the ocean because it is a natural void. It represents the one I felt I was living in. Processing the years of child abuse was rough at first. I did this thing that many trauma survivors like me resort to called: disassociation.

What a magical word, honestly. I let myself forget all the awful things that happened. The stuff that felt too heavy to carry for a child because it was, truly, HEAVY. I noticed that when I shared it.

How weird? I went from NEVER talking about my sexual abuse to casually talking about it. When I was a kid, my mom would maliciously ask me, "What is wrong with you" I would freeze up. Or break things, or just be straight-up violent to her. Or anyone. The shit I went through made me fucking angry. It still does, to be honest, especially since more stuff has been coming up.

Trauma healing is like an onion; you must keep peeling back the layers. For me, lately, my trauma would win the world record for the biggest onion grown. I fed my little emotional allium for years. It was nourished with repressed trauma after repressed trauma. What happened as a result? It became too big for its britches and harder to conceal.

I was a teenager when I faced the sexual assault experience that would haunt me and creep itself into my memory. As hard as I tried to file it away with the demons of my childhood, this one wanted to follow me.

I stayed quiet about it, though, of course. This demon was particularly pestilent, and I needed my old devices of disassociation to quiet it down. It still followed me, though. It cheered me on with all the wrong men who came into my life and irresponsible decisions.

Since misery loves company, I was rolling with a crowd of fellow hurt individuals. They introduced me to my friends' drugs and alcohol. I found whatever came my way and let it assist me in blacking out every memory that reminded me of that fateful night. It felt like the smart thing to do when I was 16.

My parents were too obsessed with belittling me for my choices to ask me why or help. They decided instead to add to the trauma with verbal abuse. It just kept me going down the road of destruction.

I beat myself up about it now, but it validated how I felt about myself at that time. That is the fucked-up thing about going through fucked up things. You believe that it was meant to happen to you. You think that your destiny is to be a fuck up.

Why else would that stuff happen to you?

Why.

The three-letter word that would constantly torture me. Every time I looked in the mirror, I felt like a two-year-old who had just learned it. I always asked myself, and there was never an answer. I just added it to the list of why's. That is the life of a trauma survivor, though.

Survivor

That word used to make me cringe.

One day, I woke up from a bender and just broke down. I realized this was enough. I had hit rock bottom. I don't know how to explain it; maybe it was my guardian angel, but I lay there stewing in the aftermath of reckless abandonment. I knew this was unsustainable.

I forced myself to go to rehab. Now, I have been finally coming to face my demons. I have no choice since I'm not a wealthy celebrity that goes to those fancy rehabs to appease their managers and talent agents.

Since my stay here, I have begun to learn a lot about myself from my experiences. The things I avoided for so long molded me, but not in a good way. I was letting them make me this disfigured creature. One I hated to see in the mirror. The key, though, was that it was something I allowed. I was letting this stuff make me feel like this.

I am reckoning with it as I sit at the beach right now and during every group or individual therapy session. The feelings come and go. A new layer is peeled when someone makes me feel triggered.

Screaming helps, though. It sounds weird, but it does. I don't care about freaking these people out. Honestly, they are assholes. Can you believe no one even came up and asked me if I was, OK?! Whatever, fuck them anyway.

I am not sure what to expect as I go on now. I no longer have the option of burying my emotions in drugs and alcohol. I must face my problems from now on. Ugh, what a drag. I am about to become so square…. I made a promise to myself, though, before I stepped foot in rehab.

"I will value my physical and mental health. I will value MYSELF."

Quitting the substances is for all three, and abandoning the dissociative behavior is for all three. It is hard as fuck to address the shit I have been through. It hurts, I don't know how to explain the pain, but I feel it in my body. I think that will be addressed in a mandatory reading of a book called "The Body Keeps Score" our rehab shrink, Dr. Elanor Katz, is making us read.

Regardless of the pain, I am pushing through. I guess that is why it is called doing "the work." It's taxing and grueling. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, though, right?

During my one/one sessions with Dr. Katz, she told me that usually, narc addicts like me take longer to hit rock bottom and that I should be grateful for having the awareness to turn myself into rehab at 21 when some people in my situation don't make it to see 21 let alone make it into rehab.

It feels weird, to be honest. When I get out of here, my friends will all be celebrating being of legal age. Not like it stopped us before, but it's a "rite of passage," so bring out the party hats and confetti! I need some space, though. They tried to talk me OUT of this decision!

THEY are the squares if you ask me. At least, I tell myself.

Whatever, I will make it. Who knows, maybe rehab is where I will meet my new people. I honestly don't know. I don't know anything anymore. I never knew things, to begin with.

Maybe that's what my guardian angel is trying to teach me. He is showing me the path to enlightenment. I have been embracing the woo and nurturing my relationship with his spirit. He told me the path begins with me, the real me.

The thing I am most certain of, I want to know the real me too. I am getting closer to understanding her already. She's still hurting, but she wants the pain to go away for real this time. No help from substances. She wants to begin to heal.