Healing and Growing

The biggest impact of traumatic past is you being shut off from part of you deep on the inside.<br /> But when it is back, your whole being is surging to wholeness…<br /> The best thing about it?<br /> There’s no going back.<br /> The surging of joy, the welcoming back of a part that lay buried within.<br /> The moment that I stopped myself running away…<br /> From when I was eight, the memory of the stranger.<br /> He led me away from the home, deep into the forest.<br /> I was like a puppet in following every instruction to please him.<br /> The shift back was sudden – I found myself running into the light, familiar places and people I knew…<br /> But I had no words, and no feelings.<br /> No way to describe what this was – the rape.<br /> And no way of knowing of how it would haunt me, for years.<br /> The panic, the fear, and being so alone – it wasn’t the worst.<br /> The worst part was trying – and failing – to find the way out.<br /> Every time I wanted to open, get close, or have sex, I was frozen, a failure.<br /> Even as I learned to set it aside, to love and to live, this hurt has lived on within me.<br /> The war in Ukraine and the stories, the countless stories of innocents having to suffer has brought it all back…<br /> It was strangely confused, it’s like something was missing, or lost.<br /> But inside of me I found an urge – let it out, find a way.<br /> I had no idea how, but then I made a choice:<br /> To latch onto this hope, wish, this desire to find the way out.<br /> This – the hardest decision that you often make, one that nobody sees, one that won’t get acknowledged, it’s so easy to miss…<br /> And I missed it, for so many times, but not now.<br /> It’s the most fragile time of all when you’re falling towards the unknown.<br /> You are trying, exploring, you don’t know what to do, and it’s crucial to trust:<br /> Trust yourself, that you’ll figure it out, that you will find a way!<br /> You have done this before, in the innermost moments, in the moments when you did your best, everything that you can, to hold on, to preserve, to keep going!<br /> You will do so again, and you’ll find your way through it, and this journey is unique to you.<br /> So I found myself writing a play – about past, and of losing the memories, but I also wanted some feedback to see if I’m on the right track…<br /> In search of a practitioner who gets storytelling for stage, I came across the profile of a researcher who’s running a program for women who are survivors of child sexual abuse.<br /> The program is all about writing this gut wrenching past out of yourself as a group, and boxing – just reading about this sent shivers down my spine… I just had to talk to her!<br /> A few emails later, we sat down together, and hearing her story has opened me up.<br /> And you should have seen it:<br /> This torrent of pain, shame, and anger, and hurt, it all came out hurtling from someplace within me.<br /> And here was this person who’s lived it, who knows what it’s like – the pristine and absolute moment of pure understanding.<br /> And when it was done, she said to me:<br /> It seems you’ve been holding back in your play. You are survivor, we need to hear your voice.<br /> This struck me like thunder, and next day I go for a jog in the bush, I cannot stop thinking about what she said, and there, in the moment, this phrase in my mind:<br /> You are a survivor. You are a survivor. You are…<br /> I fall on my knees, and I’m crying, no, sobbing, a heavy weight lifts from my shoulders.<br /> I get up, and pointing towards the sun, I only can whisper:<br /> You are who you are.<br /> And right in that moment, I feel a part of me come to life, a part that’s inside, but also a place in my body, within the abdominal.<br /> This part never left.<br /> It’s there, it helping me feeling more, it’s pulling me forward to heal.<br /> I’m feeling more present, alive, greater purpose.<br /> I have greater calm on the inside, I feel there i