Facing Trauma Head On. Let’s Go.

01 Jan Facing Trauma Head On. Let’s Go.

“I mean things have happened but I’m ok. They didn’t impact me that bad.”

Gemini therapist looked like I had gotten on her last gaht damn nerve. The reserve nerve. Next thing I know I’m sitting on a kiddie chair in a room full of art supplies. She picked up a marker and started writing on the whiteboard wall.

“Birth.”

“Nah I don’t want to play this game. I know where this shit going.”

“Tell me about the things that happened to you. Start at the beginning. You said they didn’t impact you. Let’s go.”

Few minutes later I’m staring at a timeline wondering who the hell could survive all that shit. Then realizing that someone is me. I’ve always taken my trauma in pieces. Tried to never think about the whole. My spirit must have known I couldn’t handle it. But I’m trying to be free now. And I gotta be whole to do that. So I gotta address the trauma as a whole.

Fuck.

I’ve been the queen of compartmentalization. I’ve encouraged others to do it too. And it can be useful. Sometimes necessary. But if my goal is to share my Black Box with my sisters, I’m gon have to face it all head on. My therapy homework is to write about all of the things I’ve experienced. And even though I’ve written about some of them separately and sporadically, I have to think and write about them as a whole and the ways they are connected. The ways they have caused subsequent trauma, harmed me and contributed to the ways I’ve harmed others. I have to acknowledge the things I’ve never told anybody.

Shit.

I’m ready though. I started therapy again because I knew I was ready. Despite how hard I know it’s gon be. So in the words of Gemini Therapist…

“Let’s go.”