My First Essay Publication

Before continuing this post, you first need to read the essay published through OC87recoverydiaries.org Make sure to come back to the blog when you're done; this is my essay Losing Her Saved Me- How I Healed From Trauma

Here is the link: https://oc87recoverydiaries.org/how-i-healed-from-trauma/

Welcome back, I hope you were able to take something of value from my essay. This was a very difficult piece for me to write, and this blog post won't be much different. I decided because my story is important, it needs to be shared. I sat at my desk one afternoon, and began playing back in my head all of the events that took place beginning back in 2012. Flashbacks were taking over my mind and my emotions were overwhelming to the point where I couldn't write, I didn't know how. I knew what I wanted to say, but not how to successfully share my story and leave a message of hope with it.

It took several attempts over several months to sit down and tell my story properly. One attempt included a post here on Vocal.media, but when I remembered that OC87 Recovery Diaries shares stories like mine, it felt right to attempt to publish my essay officially through their site. It took several hours, almost all day in fact, but I finally had a rough draft written out.

This draft was not far from the published piece you read on their site, I worked with a wonderful editor they provided to me through OC87 Recovery Diaries after they approved my story, and we ended up fixing some minor issues and adding clarifying information throughout the essay as well as the poem at the end to tie it all together...the process of writing the first draft is already a fuzzy memory; I was in some sort of trance-like state as I sat and typed my essay from beginning to end.

There is a lot of information in my essay, yes, but there's also a lot of missing puzzle pieces too. So I'm going to fill in some gaps starting with the night I made the police report.

The night I made the police report, I attempted to contact my mother. I figured she would be asleep as it was nearly midnight on a week-day, but I sent her a text explaining what I was going to do. I also included why I was going to do it.

No response.

I made the decision to go ahead with my plan. In my essay I say "I couldn’t tell you where the feeling of being “ready” came from, it just felt like it was time. I couldn’t pretend anymore that everything was normal." This statement is so very true. I wish there were some magical answers for other abused/assaulted individuals for when to report, how to report, and what to do at every step along the way, but there is no how-to manual for this shit. It's going to be difficult, it's going to be messy, but your story matters just as much as mine does. Everyone's story is different and although I think mine can help, what happened to me isn't going to be the same as the next person's. My hope is that this post combined with my essay is enough information for the people who have been abused by family to take something valuable away from what I went through.

After sending the text to my mother, I waited a few minutes, then, I made the decision to call the non-emergency police line. From there I was instructed to make a police report at the police station (as mentioned in my essay). And so that's what I went and did.

After making the report, in the middle of the night, my partner and I went home via our Uber driver who took us to the station. I don't remember any other details of the night, my next memory that comes to mind occurs a few days later. I was arranging details through text with my mother to get my phone off of their plan, which results in the next few scattered memories.

I went and got a new phone and added my new line to my partner's, was on the phone multiple times, and then, I went to urgent care and found out I had Covid-19. What I thought was just a sinus infection, tested positive on March 4th. My mother argued with me over text about how my rapid Covid-19 test, done at urgent care, could have been a false positive... which it wasn't, and then, probably the most traumatic part of all of this... My last in-person interaction with my mother would occur 6 days later.

The same day I received that god-awful text message from my mother that I wrote out in my essay, I saw my mother in person to give her my previous cell phone; this interaction scarred me and I can only hope that with time, it will be less prominent in my mind. My mother and I stood outside of my apartment and exchanged words. She brought up things that didn't make much sense to me in this matter, but I think I understand now. For example, my mother told me that I ruined her life since I was 2 years old, and, I always treated her like she was stupid, even as a little kid. I didn't understand what any of this had to do with her second husband abusing me and trying to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else going forward, but my educated guess? She was probably fully prepared and maybe even planned at this point, to never interact with me again, so I think she was getting out everything she possibly could in those moments that I've said or done over the last 25 years that she didn't like.

I'm sure my mother would love to write her own book or essay, or something, anything, to try and prove to people I am "crazy" when I know damn well that I am not, and everyone else on Earth who knows me, knows I'm not too. I am not just some nasty spiteful and mentally ill person. But that? That's how she made me feel for most of my life, and I can tell you this- it still hurts, but I'm managing that pain better now than ever before.

After the interaction ended, she stormed off yelling with a choked up voice, but I don't remember what she said. I then stormed off with my middle fingers in the air and proceeded to go back into my apartment building. The second I stepped foot inside my apartment and saw my partner, I was sobbing. Ugly crying uncontrollably; this would last the rest of the day and into the night off and on, and would be the last time I would have a face-to-face interaction with my mother.

It's been almost 1 and a half years since I've talked to my mother, some days are still unbelievably difficult, other days, are only moderately difficult. The bottom line is, I don't have a mother anymore, and I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I do know this- I will be OK, and if you can relate to anything I have written in my essay or here, you will be OK too. You have the capability to make it through this, there are people who will believe you, who will believe the truth, and there is help out there for you if you want it. You've got this. It might not feel like it now, and maybe that means it's not your time to do anything yet, like I said, I just knew when it was time, you will too.