Take a Picture

I joined an online Trauma recovery group for women. I was reading a young ladies post and had a flashback that took me way back. Way back to a time I thought was long forgotten. It was obviously still fresh inside me. I thought to respond with what I learned from it. Hoping to help. Maybe do something positive with something so negative from my past. The girl writing was talking about something very familiar to a lot of victims who often end up going back to their abusers. Sometimes, several times, and for various reasons. I could go on forever about the various reasons victims of abuse go back to their abusers, but I want to write about one today because this young ladies’ post triggered me to do what I refer to from time to time as “Time Travelling.”

The young lady was discussing her feelings of sadness and feeling lonely remembering the “Good Times”, she had with her toxic ex in their early days together. Ooooh Those f*#king unbelievable illusive good times. It’s a common thread for many of us, but truthfully, upon reflection, for those of us survivors of abusive relationships, the “good times” were mostly an imagined illusion of wishful thinking and what we wanted to believe was true. Sadly, that’s the truth.

What came to mind when I read this ladies post, is something that helped me not to go back, but instead, keep doing my personal work to heal, as best as I could that is. Keep doing the invisible work through all the compounded struggles and abuses to come. And I must say, there were many more abuses going forward. I wrote to the lady, and I guess all the other group members reading on this day. My post was as follows.

I left a man who beat me up, many times. I was very young and had lived through a lot of unhealed traumas as a child before I met him. When I left him, I still had visible bruises from the most recent beating, and unimaginable heartbreak, which I realize now, was also visible in my stature and appearance. I went for coffee and pancakes at a popular restaurant my mom, some girl friends and I used to regular on Sunday mornings, Phil’s. On that morning my mother told me to stand in the mirror, take a good long look and then, take a picture of my self. An actual photograph. We didn't have the kind of photo able cell phones back then, so I took a picture and had it developed at a convenient photo developing place called Snap Shots. My mom said, “Every time you feel like going back, and you will” she told me, “Because he'll bring up the very few minor good times, trying to remind you of how sweet he was and how good it was in the early days together”. “LOOK AT THE PICTURE”. She repeated it very firmly again and again. Life went on and eventually the emptiness and sad feelings eased, as to be expected.

After some time, it was like I had some sort of emotional amnesia. I later in time found out in my therapy, that extreme cortisol levels, over long periods of time, can cause brain damage and this kind of chemistry can cause memory loss as well, along with an extremely long list of never ending physical and psychological trauma responses and effects. All that aside, I was feeling better, less scared, less anxious, less sad and hurt. I was loving taking care of my little girl and watching her grow, and as hope would have it, I was loving myself better. Soon I started seeing couples together everywhere, seeing happy people together, holding hands, looking like they had special romantic feelings for each other, talking, kissing, holding each other. That’s right, I was getting lonely and thinking maybe it wasn’t so bad, maybe I could try a little harder. But WAIT! There was my mothers voice in my head repeating, “Take a picture Dana”. So, when the inevitable sentimental feelings came back. Low and behold, I remembered my mom. I got the picture I had taken of my sad battered face, and I looked.

Then I felt them, the old all too familiar feelings in my guts, the hurt and heartbreak, the sickening nausea and ultimately the grief and yes. Anger. The way I felt with that man, 98% of the time, outweighed the 2% of breadcrumb sentimental "good times". I didn't love him. I couldn’t love him. Because he couldn’t love me, sounds sad but it was true. That wasn’t love. He didn’t have the capacity to love me. And because love wasn’t reciprocated, I wasn’t loving him either. I was a codependent enabling him.

The only true love I had at the time was the true love I gave to my daughter and the love my little girl, my mother and I all had for each other.

After sharing my short story, I continued relating to the young lady and the trauma recovery group with the following words. “Ok, so I guess what I'm saying is maybe, explore how he made you feel and how often he made you feel that way. Feeling bad, or sick to your stomach. And how many times you tried to make things better or went back and how that made you feel when it turned out to be the ‘same-old, same-old’ How many times and how much time? Think about that hurt and then,.. TAKE A PICTURE”.

Seriously..., when you feel that sick feeling in your guts and you start to welt up with heartbreak and tears, take a picture of yourself and remember those horrible, painful, sickening times. So, you can LOOK at the true picture when you start to feel sentimental about the 2% of bread crumb "good times" you had.

Remember to look at the picture you took of yourself. You'll never forget, so you may as well remember.

I still had a lot of work to do from there, and maybe some of you do too, but I think this helped me. I’ve realized in more recent years, that I really don’t know what romantic “Love” is. I’ve never really had it...but I definitely know what love isn’t. I'm not a professional and it's a different world now, and I'm a lifelong learner so I'll always be a work in progress, but my hope is that this may help someone reading this. Sincerely. TAKE A PICTURE.

Peace Love & Light xo -Dana Mary Colleen Campbell March 1, 2024