Strength

*TRIGGER WARNING. THIS ARTICLE REFERENCES/MENTIONS THE FOLLOWING, BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO: MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES, CHILD ABUSE, SA, SUICIDE*

I don't know if it's instinct. I don't know if it's an accumulation of things heard, read, and experienced. I just know things. When I was ten years old, I knew I would be an author someday. It wasn't something I was taught, something I had seen the process of. It wasn't something I had to do outside of class. It wasn't particularly encouraged.

I had put to paper a game my friends had played. It was ninety-nine pages long – Microsoft sheets, not actual book pages. I didn't know what the "Tab" button was for, what the quadruple and centered option was. I had only just learned what a genuinely proper sentence structure was. I didn't publish anything until I was fifteen years old. It was a terrible bylined article on a man, a Corporal in the US Military, and a friend's dad. It wasn't anything I said. My teacher suggested I rearrange the order of the paragraphs. I was too proud. It had great things to say about the relationship the two shared, but there was no flow to it. It was several different paragraphs and thoughts plastered together.

That level of pride rose from the depression and anxiety that raged inside me; three months after the assault by a full-grown man.

After it was published and distributed to the school, I had to learn from that. Talk about feeling absolute shame for being so prideful and ruining the paper. I spent the following years reading and writing everything I could. I was not without a book, even when I was in class. Even when a teacher wrote a note in front of the course for me to go to the office. My bruised ego and pride colored my face as I left the class. My mom had dropped off my lunch. No one ever knew that.

Pride had me stay silent then. It kept me quiet about the abuse that happened at home and kept me acting as if nothing had happened. I had told my mom I wanted to see a therapist. That I was struggling and needed help. She scoffed and refused to acknowledge my need for use. I took a handful of pills after that. I'm still surprised that I woke up. But here I am in the home that my husband bought for our family. He wouldn't propose until he could call himself a homeowner. I am sitting in your office, listening to "I Love Me" by Demi Lavato while my dog keeps watching.

I've made it.

I still have my bad days. I still have nights where I wake up in a cold sweat, shaking from a nightmare that took me back to a place that was never safe. I'm still in therapy, but I suppose I will always be at this point. Every good week meets with a bad week. I spend that week healing. Work harder on me than a week when I can rest.

And yet, I just know what my future will look like. I know I will still have bad days, but the good ones outweigh them. I will be safe. And happy. Content. Loved. And surrounded by the family I have made with my love, compassion, and humility. I will have learned to love myself, all of me, even the parts I once hated. I will be peacefully connected with nature. I will be balanced. I will be healing. I will have the career of my dreams.

This is something I just know.