I am a survivor. What does that even mean. I am not 100% sure yet, but I know it means that I don't want to be defined as a victim. I don't want to be defined by my past.
How do you process your past, how do you get over childhood trauma! I thought I had all the answers, I thought I knew what I had to do. Maybe I did know some of it, but I didn't know it would be so hard. I didn't know it would take so long, and I didn't know how much of my life had to change in order to make room for healing to happen.
I was sexually abused as a child by two family members, I was sexually assaulted at 13 by a family friend. I was raped as a teenager, and sexually assaulted as an adult, twice. I come from a home where alcohol was abused, my parents fought often. Fueled with alcohol these often became violent fights. My Dad physically beat my Mom and my Mom physically beat my Dad. My Dad physically beat my brother, and my Mom physically beat me. Coming from Zimbabwe being beaten by your parents was not out of the norm, but my brother certainly bore the brunt of excessive beatings, more so than me.
This time last year I would never have been able to write any of that down. Well maybe one or two lines, but then I would have deleted it, because it would have been too real. I was living a life where these things didn't happen to me, occasionally after copious amounts of wine I would cry and be so depressed and anxious the next day, I would blame work, my husband, life in general, but never bring up the past, or the excessive alcohol. It's like being in a swimming pool trying to keep a float under the water, no matter how hard you push it down, or how deep, when you let go it's going to surface. So my problems did surface occasionally, but I would stuff them back down and pray that this time they stayed down.
I think I have struggled with depression my whole life, not all the time, but it has always been there.
So what changed, what made me finally seek help. In February of last year after a night of drinking I wrote an email to one of my abusers, accusing him and basically asking for an apology. I will never forget that week. I started phoning family members telling them about my abuse, and trying to find out if it had happened to anyone else, surely I can't be the only one right? I was so angry. I had finally reached rock bottom. I sat in our office on the phone to the Samaritans crying my eyes out, I had realised I couldn't live like this anymore. For the first time in my life I truly realised what it felt like to want to die. The emotional pain was so intense I couldn't breathe. I felt trapped, like I was caged up inside and there was no way out. I was being tortured by my memories, and I didn't know how to stop them.
I woke up severely hung over the next day, I can't remember if my son went to school that day or not, but half way through the morning I phoned my husband in tears begging him to come home because I wasn't well. He came straight home and I went to bed. I stayed in bed for most of the week. I did phone my GP to ask what I could do with these intense feelings, I couldn't go on living with this beast inside of me, I was being eaten alive. She has always known there was something about my past that was haunting me, but I had never told her everything. Between us we found a hospital, and arrangements were made for me to meet up with the nurse manager of the day unit, they agreed I was a good candidate and that they felt they would be able to help me.
I started in the hospital on the 29th March 2018. I will never forget that day, as I start there being admitted answering questions, crying my eyes out I kept thinking, how did I get here. I don't know what I thought or what I expected, I can't remember, but everyday for a week and a half I would walk through those halls like a zombie, suffering from depression, wandering what I was doing there, wandering how I got there, and not quite believing I could get better. I felt trapped in my mind, but I couldn't tell anyone. I told the basics, talking in detail was beyond me at this point. I was too emotional, I couldn't get it all out without crying my eyes out.
I remember the first time I met my psychiatrist, the first time she said the word trauma - I think my whole body went rigid and I felt like being sick. Surely my childhood wasn't that bad. Trauma belongs to war vets, or people who suffer serious injuries in a car crash, it couldn't be applied to my past could it?
I remember sitting in group sessions thinking I don't get it, what am I meant to be doing, what am I meant to be achieving, nothing seemed to be working. My psychiatrist put me on one medication, stopped one then added another.
I have this analogy that I use now. I went into that hospital thinking they were going to remove all the hurt, they were going to take my abuse and keep it, and I was going to walk out the door free from my past. I was still in denial. In reality I walked in with a backpack worth of issues, and when I was eventually discharged three and a half months later I left with a few suitcases worth of issues. I had pushed some of my memories so far down that I didn't remember them. But now that I had sat down and started to look at them, more and more came flooding back. I was being triggered all the time, I was remembering all the time, I was ruminating all the time. I was stuck, I couldn't focus, I was distant and distracted all the time. I felt like I was a zombie blindly walking through my life only just managing to get the basics right.
How do you process your past, how do you get over childhood trauma! I thought I had all the answers, I thought I knew what I had to do. Maybe I did know some of it, but I didn't know it would be so hard. I didn't know it would take so long, and I didn't know how much of my life had to change in order to make room for healing to happen.
I was sexually abused as a child by two family members, I was sexually assaulted at 13 by a family friend. I was raped as a teenager, and sexually assaulted as an adult, twice. I come from a home where alcohol was abused, my parents fought often. Fueled with alcohol these often became violent fights. My Dad physically beat my Mom and my Mom physically beat my Dad. My Dad physically beat my brother, and my Mom physically beat me. Coming from Zimbabwe being beaten by your parents was not out of the norm, but my brother certainly bore the brunt of excessive beatings, more so than me.
This time last year I would never have been able to write any of that down. Well maybe one or two lines, but then I would have deleted it, because it would have been too real. I was living a life where these things didn't happen to me, occasionally after copious amounts of wine I would cry and be so depressed and anxious the next day, I would blame work, my husband, life in general, but never bring up the past, or the excessive alcohol. It's like being in a swimming pool trying to keep a float under the water, no matter how hard you push it down, or how deep, when you let go it's going to surface. So my problems did surface occasionally, but I would stuff them back down and pray that this time they stayed down.
I think I have struggled with depression my whole life, not all the time, but it has always been there.
So what changed, what made me finally seek help. In February of last year after a night of drinking I wrote an email to one of my abusers, accusing him and basically asking for an apology. I will never forget that week. I started phoning family members telling them about my abuse, and trying to find out if it had happened to anyone else, surely I can't be the only one right? I was so angry. I had finally reached rock bottom. I sat in our office on the phone to the Samaritans crying my eyes out, I had realised I couldn't live like this anymore. For the first time in my life I truly realised what it felt like to want to die. The emotional pain was so intense I couldn't breathe. I felt trapped, like I was caged up inside and there was no way out. I was being tortured by my memories, and I didn't know how to stop them.
I woke up severely hung over the next day, I can't remember if my son went to school that day or not, but half way through the morning I phoned my husband in tears begging him to come home because I wasn't well. He came straight home and I went to bed. I stayed in bed for most of the week. I did phone my GP to ask what I could do with these intense feelings, I couldn't go on living with this beast inside of me, I was being eaten alive. She has always known there was something about my past that was haunting me, but I had never told her everything. Between us we found a hospital, and arrangements were made for me to meet up with the nurse manager of the day unit, they agreed I was a good candidate and that they felt they would be able to help me.
I started in the hospital on the 29th March 2018. I will never forget that day, as I start there being admitted answering questions, crying my eyes out I kept thinking, how did I get here. I don't know what I thought or what I expected, I can't remember, but everyday for a week and a half I would walk through those halls like a zombie, suffering from depression, wandering what I was doing there, wandering how I got there, and not quite believing I could get better. I felt trapped in my mind, but I couldn't tell anyone. I told the basics, talking in detail was beyond me at this point. I was too emotional, I couldn't get it all out without crying my eyes out.
I remember the first time I met my psychiatrist, the first time she said the word trauma - I think my whole body went rigid and I felt like being sick. Surely my childhood wasn't that bad. Trauma belongs to war vets, or people who suffer serious injuries in a car crash, it couldn't be applied to my past could it?
I remember sitting in group sessions thinking I don't get it, what am I meant to be doing, what am I meant to be achieving, nothing seemed to be working. My psychiatrist put me on one medication, stopped one then added another.
I have this analogy that I use now. I went into that hospital thinking they were going to remove all the hurt, they were going to take my abuse and keep it, and I was going to walk out the door free from my past. I was still in denial. In reality I walked in with a backpack worth of issues, and when I was eventually discharged three and a half months later I left with a few suitcases worth of issues. I had pushed some of my memories so far down that I didn't remember them. But now that I had sat down and started to look at them, more and more came flooding back. I was being triggered all the time, I was remembering all the time, I was ruminating all the time. I was stuck, I couldn't focus, I was distant and distracted all the time. I felt like I was a zombie blindly walking through my life only just managing to get the basics right.
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