We Fall to Rise

*Trigger warning*

I’ve always had big feelings. The only time I saw a problem with this was when I was sharing my feelings with other people. Some of those people accepted the feelings I shared with them with an open heart and mind. Others would shame me, calling me a “drama queen” or tell me to get over it. I tried to keep sharing anyways, believing that the space I created for other people to feel would be given back to me. I carried the emotions of some of the adults in my life on my back but was afraid of telling them mine for fear of being belittled. When I was in elementary school I was abused by a relative. I remember pulling up my shirt in the mirror when I was in the 6th grade and looking at the raised, red flesh on my back, vision blurry as I traced the outline of large “x” marks all up and down my spine. I whispered to myself in the mirror, “They doesn’t know what they’re doing. They’re parent did it to them.” I was petrified and in pain but afraid of being punished for showing my fear so I held it in, eyes brimming with liquid that wasn’t allowed to escape, never sighing so much as a peep out. I tried to ask for help once but when you don’t feel heard as a child, and you’re threatened for sharing, believing you deserve the cards you have been dealt, you eventually stop. I’d lay in bed, eyes closed, dreaming of the day I was far away and alone. Do you know what happens when you suppress your feelings? You get sick. Physically and mentally. I spent years in the presence of people who couldn’t handle my big feelings or my big past. Instead of validating myself I retreated further and further into myself. I hated myself for what I felt. I hated myself for the sting I’d feel, for the plummeting feeling as my heart sunk further and further into the pits of my stomach. And eventually i started punishing myself for it. I thought my big feelings being rejected by others made me deserving of more pain than I already felt. I couldn’t figure out how to navigate the intense feelings I had about all of this. As desperately as I searched for balance the scales were always off kilter, never in my favor. So, I hurt myself. I cut myself for the first time when I was in 7th grade. When I was a junior in high school my sleeve slipped up in class and one of my teachers noticed my scars. Nurses from the local mental health services were sent to the school and threatened to have me put on suicide watch. When I was 19 I was starting to feel a little better. I was ready to try to move on. I never believed I would live to graduate high school. I was certain the pain I harbored would become too much to bare and I would eventually decline to continue on with this life. So, I took advantage of this new feeling. I found myself waking up in the morning full of energy, feeling like the sun was shining on me at all times. I tried to maintain that feeling through cosmetology school but regrettably found myself unequipt and unable to, which led to the cutting starting again and an eating disorder came along with it. I lost 20 lbs that December over a 3 week period. My mom was convinced I was on drugs due to my protruding spine and dark, lifeless eyes. It took a year but I overcame my ED. Then there was 27. I woke up in a room I had never seen before after going on a second date. I couldn’t remember anything, all I could think about was my face. Why does it hurt so bad? And once I sat up, my ribs. Why can’t I breathe? I walked across inexplicably shattered glass to a mirror to behold my battered face and body. I had been drugged, knocked out, and stomped on. I was too sick to manage to escape that day. So, I had to be the bravest I’ve ever been and wait and leave my body again; to find another place in my mind. While I gave my body to someone else in fear of what further harm I’d succumb to if I did not. I had already been through so much. Not this, too. I came home that weekend with no fight left. I remember standing on the slippery wet railing of my back patio in the rain one night, leaning out over the edge, one hand on the pillar wondering when I’d find the courage to fall. I managed to keep going. Barely. Over the years that followed I continued to repress my emotions, life having proved over and over that my feelings were too big for this world to carry. There was no place for me. So I got angry. When I turned 28 my anger and need to control manifested as an ED again and I went on one of the biggest rampages I’ve ever been on. I drank everyday. I’d literally drink while I was driving. I constantly blacked out. I binged in secret and I never held down a meal. I felt crazy because I was starving and my stomach was in intense agony. I couldn’t feel anything anymore emotionally so I let people abuse me. My body was no longer mine and I punished myself even more for that. I would do things I swore I never would, I hurt people to see if it would conjure up any emotion but it never did. I was entirely numb. Do you know what’s worse than having big feelings? Having no feelings at all.

It wasn’t until I pushed life to the limit, until I finally got scared, until my clothes hung from my body no longer having anything to cling to, until I looked down after getting sick and saw blood; until I crawled into my bed, heart palpitating, barely able to catch my breath, cuddling up under my blankets like an animal and finding a good place to take its last breath; that I finally made a decision.

I can not live like this anymore. I don’t want to live like this anymore. If the world can’t handle me and everyone one of my big feelings, then fuck them. I have every right to exist, I have every right to take up space, I have every right to stand here and be the messy, loving, complicated, big feeling disaster that I might be. I let abuse make me feel small. I let fear tell me this world is not a safe place for me. I let people who had unprocessed trauma, who rejected their own experiences convince me to reject my own. When you are surrounded by people who hurt themselves and others you can expect to learn to do the same. You can expect to be traumatized and you can certainly expect to BELIEVE that there is something wrong with you for rejecting this narrative. My power was taken over and over by people who stole my body, who hurt me, who belittled my mind, who robbed me of my innocence. I don’t believe when you are a child you have a say in any of this but as an adult I certainly allowed the violation of my soul infinitely more than one can anticipate recovery from. I have survived and witnessed things that people don’t come back from. And yet, here I am.

Why am I sharing this with you? It feels like standing naked, baring it all, to an audience I hardly know- if at all. Life can be brutal and we don’t always have a say in the things that happen to us. I used to hate the adults that hurt me as a child, and I’d cry, believing the quality of my life was their fault; that I’d never be able to be a contributing member of society because of their actions. The weight I was under from continuing to act out from this place of pain only solidified this belief. The only real fact here is that you don’t have to stay there. I relived my childhood and adult trauma everyday. I thought about it. I mediated on it. I’d get drunk and cry about it because I was no longer able to with a sober mind. I hurt others and punished myself. I made sure that pain was alive and well. No one ever said to me, your pain is valid. Your experience is valid. Everyone wanted me to move on. Everyone wanted me to let it go. But no one wanted to sit through the detox period. The part where your anxiety is amplified and the nightmares creep in and you lie, writhing in the pain of the past as you sweat out the unprocessed emotions. I had to wait until I decided I was ready to be the June to my Johnny Cash all on my own. And you know what? Let me tell you what this girl, the one sitting right here telling you this story, has done for me. She has saved my fucking life. She picked me up, dusted me off, looked me in the eyes and said, “YOU ARE PERFECT. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. YOU ARE SMART. YOUR FEELINGS MATTER AND THEY ARE VALID. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU WAS NOT OKAY. HOW ANYONE SURVIVES THAT IS BEYOND ME, BUT WHEN YOU’RE READY WE WILL PROCESS THIS AND WE WILL MOVE FORWARD AND WE WILL GRAB THE LITTLE GIRL INSIDE OF YOU BY THE HAND AND WE WILL GRAB EVERY OTHER LITTLE GIRL OR LITTLE BOY STUCK INSIDE OTHER WOUNDED ADULTS AND WE WILL WALK HAND IN HAND AND WE WILL BE PROUD OF OUR BIG FEELINGS AND WE WILL VALIDATE EACH OTHER AND WE WILL LIVE FOR THE DAY THAT THIS KIND OF COMPASSION AND LOVE IS CEMENTED INTO THE FOUNDATION OF OUR SOCIETY.”

I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up but I can tell you this and that’s that I am proud of the woman I’ve become. It took everything in me to become her and I am honored to know her. I am proud to be carried by her. I am proud to be loved and accepted by her. I have learned that the views of others are not my own. That while not everyone may be able to accept me or my story, they don’t have to! And that’s okay! I have to. It’s my job. How someone else feels about me is a reflection of how they feel about themself. How I feel about me is a reflection of my inner state. It’s my job to cultivate an accepting inner environment. And it’s very important to learn to not be defeated or imposed upon by the believe systems of others. Taking on the opinions that others have of you is too great a responsibility. Even taking on the responsibility of someone having you on a peddle-stool is too much. You have to remember that you are the creator of YOUR Universe and yours alone. The way you feel about yourself is going to be reflected by the way the world interacts with you. If you hate yourself and punish yourself for how you feel, you are going to attract people to you who reinforce those beliefs. Please, stop focusing on the past. I know you feel stuck there like you’re in some sort of purgatory but you are not, my love. You are right here in this moment with me and in this moment you have a choice. Lay down the past. Lay down the need to be what someone else needs. Lay down the responsibility of how other people react to your emotions. Stop carrying the weight of others trauma when you can’t even carry your own. Put it down now. You don’t deserve to go down like that. You deserve to rise from the flames like the mother fucking Phoenix you are. Do not be afraid to feel, it’s a gift. It lets you know where you’re at and what you need. Do not be afraid to share, people need to hear you! People need love! People need to learn that it’s okay to be where they are and that it’s okay to want love and validation. People need to hear your story. It just might be the one to give someone out there the permission they need to let themselves off the hook.

I have been ED free for a year this month. I have done talk therapy and coaching sessions. I have started meditating and reading content that reinforces the truths I believe and the kind of life I would be proud to live. I believe in a future where we foster acceptance and validation. I believe in sharing our experiences. I believe the only way to heal and get what you want is by being vulnerable, accepting where you are, and being gentle with yourself because this healing is a process and having the self awareness to be disappointed but not take it to heart will keep your head above water. It does not matter where you came from, where you’re at, how old you are, or what you’ve been through. You can rewrite every lesson life has ever taught you and you should. Everyone is simply living from the laws they’ve written for their own lives and they see everything from this perspective. What are your laws? Think about it. Change it. Practice it. You are only as limited as you decide you are. I let my past and my pain and my own self rejection dictate so much. I refuse to let my past be my destination. I CHOOSE to live my life with compassion. I put on my rose colored glasses every morning because I can. I see and believe in love. I reinforce the fact that fear is an illusion and only love is real everyday as often as it takes. The pattern of self degradation and abuse are simply habits and habits can be changed. How awesome is that? I realize your habits are big but your inner power is bigger. Grab this life by the horns and turn that thing around. You are no longer going nowhere and you’re certainly not going backwards. You’re going wherever the fuck you want. You CAN do this. If this little traumatized girl can, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt you can, too. Let me be the first to say I believe in you and everyone one of those big beautiful feelings you have are valid. You are no longer waiting for life to tell you who you are- you are going to walk out there and you are going to unapologetically show life what you’re worth. Your new self is waiting. Get out there and show the world who’s calling the shots.