People don’t really understand how grief from trauma eats you up day to day.

A moment similar to the memory, a place, a name, a word, a touch… & everything comes crashing back in an instant debilitating you. Making you relive the worst time of your life. You mask, you laugh you cry in private, you die in private …but you come back out and just act like everything’s okay bc it’s easier than facing the music and feeling all of it and allowing someone to see you break.

Well today I decided i’m tired of feeling this way. I’m tired of memories and words and names having power over me. I don’t want to crash & burn every time I’m reminded of this nightmare, I don’t want it to dictate my present life, to burn me everyday. I don’t want to live like this anymore.

But how do you heal something you didn’t break ? How do you nurture yourself back whole when you weren’t the one who did the damage ?

How do you remind yourself that it’s okay to live, that it’s okay to love, that it’s okay to feel when feeling has led to nothing but heartache.

How do you heal when the same places & people that hurt you are still attached to people in your day to day life. I know I need to separate to fully heal but I also know at some point these same names voices & places are going to continue to haunt me until I face them?

So what do you do….

I’m still trying to figure that part out.

Hi, it’s me again. I wrote that a couple of months ago and in that time I didn’t quite figure the whole thing out yet but I did realize, there’s nothing wrong with removing yourself from the spaces that have hurt you, in fact it’s medicine. It’s what you should do. What are we holding on for? Shared history ? This concept that you’re “supposed” to forgive ? Truth be told that’s a crappy way of continuously allowing harm in your life. I’m done with that mindset. It helps no one and heals nothing. The true forgiveness is in forgiving you…That’s it & that’s all. Remove yourself from the spaces that cause you so much harm and pain. That’s not natural, normal, or safe. Stress is NOT the norm as much as we’ve been conditioned to think so.

It’s okay to go against the grain love.