Tag: self love

Post ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’ – Reclaiming my history

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Me – reclaiming my own history

My life is slowly coming together in all areas. The things that used to be broken inside me, are healing, the dark memories are fading – and I am liberating everything that was ever suppressed or filled with shame and fear. Reclaiming my strength. I am not suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder anymore, even though it will always be there, but in the background. I’m going through a post ‘PTSD’ phase right now.

This is the first time in my adult life when I can enjoy my days without expecting abusive attacks, humiliation or painful neglect (including self neglect). I feel happy. Strong. At peace. Awakened. With that comes a new sense of clarity – and suddenly I see things from a completely new perspective. From a place of self-compassion and disillusion. But it’s not always a pleasant experience. It can be quite difficult at times.

I look at myself, the me I was back then – and I see so many strange and confusing things I had to put up with. Things like always being on the lookout for a possible betrayal just because I was so used to it. Little betrayals. Big ones. Traumas. And things like other people’s sick behavior that I transformed into my own shame and guilt. Like it was my fault they would behave like that in front of me. Now, I look at all that and I can’t even picture myself with those people anymore. Sharing my bed with them. Sharing their sperm. Blood. Life. Plans for the future. I can’t see myself laughing at their jokes and innuendoes like I did – stuff that was supposed to belittle- and humiliate me in an indirect way. The passive aggressive crap. I can’t imagine how I could allow anyone to ever spit in my face. Or drag me across the floor, holding me by my hair so that some hair would come out by the roots. The really aggressive crap.

To be called ‘cunt’. ‘Whore’ (by 4 different men in total). ‘Disgusting’. ‘Worthless piece of shit’. To be forced into the position of a victim. Or to have my orgasms being forced out of me because it was a turn on for him when he was feeling like he was in charge of my body. Power stuff. I hate that. My discomfort was his fetish. My sense of pleasure was not interesting to him. Or to a lot of the other men before him. Not important. And I wasn’t important. Just like I was a whore to some men, I was a fuck-doll to others. Or a punch bag. A dog.

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At times I felt like I was halfway to this sexually abusive style. What a nightmare.

I just can’t see myself in those types of situations anymore. It hurts so much when I look at myself from this new perspective. I feel very naked in front of myself and my own history. It has the ability to tear me apart at times. But I have decided to use everything to my advantage. I will reclaim every moment of humiliation and abuse – and turn it into something useful. A detail in a novel. A side note in a blog post. In a future lecture about overcoming trauma. And as part of my private mythology that I use in my art. I’ll squeeze the juice right out of it. If they wanted me to have all these painful experiences, I will turn it into magic because that’s what I do. That’s who I am.

The details of humiliation vary in dark tones and pain. But they are all mine. Like the awkward detail including one of these men who, before dinner (as a regular daily routine for a few months in the beginning of our relationship) would take out his semi-flaccid penis and put it on the edge of the dining table so it would look isolated from the rest of his body – and then he would make a hand gesture like it was saying ‘please… behold… and adore my pride and joy.. please…look – stare for all I care’ and with a smile on his face he would patiently wait for my reaction. In the bright light from the big lamp hanging above the table, he would also be in full display for any people who happened to pass by our windows – and for the family across the street (with two teenage sons) who were also having dinner at the same time every night and could see us just like I could see what was served on their plates. This is a confusing detail in my history of humiliation. But what the hell was it all about? What does it even mean? He seemed so proud of himself – even though his penis was flaccid and the situation was bizarre.

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With his dick next to the bowl of rice, I would cover my eyes and giggle like an embarrassed little school girl. Although it was so much more than an embarrassment. I was mortified. Humiliated. And I was suffocating, hoping the neighbors hadn’t seen the routine this night either. I lost my apetit. But I forced the food into my mouth after he’d zipped up. Like a good girl. Just like I zipped up after he had forced my orgasms. Perhaps it was his twisted idea of equality.

About a different kind of starvation

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Photo found on tumblr

I think it’s strange that when we talk about starvation, it’s always about the physical connection to food. But we rarely talk about how that nagging sensation of hunger, desperation and frustration can be felt in other places than in our tummies.

When we neglect our needs, we feel like something is missing – and it creates a void inside. Just like we feel when we are hungry for food. It’s a sneaky thing, the process of losing ourselves to the greyness of every day life routines,  compromises in relationships, shame, fear or any place where we can’t really feel free to be ourselves all the way. We adjust ourselves to the course of life and direction or stagnation of our ambitions. But it’s easy to overlook needs or desires when life feels like a train ride without any stops. It’s easy to lose the connection between mind and body or mind and soul, and that’s when we’re slowly creating a starvation somewhere inside. You can’t feel it happening until you are faced with the suction of the void. And the void is not talking. It’s confusing. Annoying. Frustrating. You don’t know what is missing. So you overcompensate with other things. You create renovation projects and home improvement, you have another baby, you put more hours into work, you shop or try to buy yourself free of the void – for the moment and there’s a sense of satisfaction but not the sensation of true fulfillment.

I’ve been starving for many things throughout my adult life and in various relationships. For intimacy. Sex. Intellectual stimulation. For artistic growth. Self acceptance. Closure. Friendship. Relief of shame and guilt. Genuine love. Pleasure. Happiness.

The starvation made me feel angry, bitter and depressed. I didn’t know why I felt that way so it left me feeling helpless and broken.

It wasn’t until I started to listen to my inner voice – my core – and began my journey in therapy that I could see how lost I was while I was overcompensating with the substitutions or the instant satisfaction that never lasted very long.

I am slowly approaching all of my starvations, trying to feed my needs or at least acknowledge them. It isn’t easy to stay true to who you really are in this time of age when we’re constantly being hacked by norms, social stress, mainstream ideals and pre- packaged lifestyles but it is possible.

You just need to create a little space for yourself where your thoughts and feelings can float through you without any judgements or shame. That’s all it takes to start filling the nagging void inside.

Staring into the eyes of life

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Georges de La Tour, La Madeleine à la veilleuse,  1640 – 1645

I am trying to focus on my art again, but I am constantly being interrupted by this overwhelming feeling of being really present in myself – and how that feeling is weaving itself in every moment, and ironically I’m suddenly not sure if I am present in the moment or just within myself and detached from the world outside my own mind. But everything feels different now. I used to be withdrawn because I lived inside my head – now I am living with it as a great companion trying to figure out how to relate to the world. I am centered, but not in the state of just being – I am still layers away from connecting to the real divinity inside myself. The place where fear doesn’t exist – a place where I am accepting everything about myself, the situations I am going through and people, without any judgments or desire to control any of it. I’ve learned that being in control is to accept not having any control at all – and to embrace that notion instead of being intimidated by it.

For the first time in my life I am also exploring how I feel about my own mortality. I used to live so close to the  darkness that I thought Death was just another word for Life. But now I live in a perfect greyscale – and for the first time I am actually scared to die and to lose the people I love. It was so much easier to live in the dark where loss was an everyday experience in some way or another. I lost my dignity so many times a day, my self respect, my value as a human being, I lost my creativity, I lost faith in myself as an artist and I lost myself over and over again. There is nothing more painful in this life than self abandonment because every external abandonment becomes unbearable – then you don’t have anything, not even yourself. I am grateful for having rescued myself – from myself.

I am going through an overwhelming process of healing and being in love with another soul that I connect with in every way possible. I am filled with warm clouds – and so much hope.

Shame

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I am dealing with shame right now, in my self therapy. It’s a very painful subject to dissect. Perhaps it is the core of the darkness I’ve been carrying with me for almost all my life. Shame is something very private – and the most fascinating thing about it, is that we don’t feel shame in front of ourselves – it is always in front of other people. We are OK with our own flaws and ‘abnormalities’ when we are alone – but when we are confronted with them around other people – we want to escape them or hide them to whatever cost, because somewhere along our journey, other people pointed them out as flaws – and shamed us for it. We were taught to hate those sides of ourselves and the sad thing is that it’s the flaws that makes us unique and beautiful. Whatever makes us stand out is not a flaw or a weakness, it’s a definition of what makes us magical individuals. In the game of Tetris – the rule is ‘if you fit in you disappear’, think about that for a moment. Now that is a shame.

I am examining the shame I feel about my own flaws and ‘abnormalities, to be able to make peace or to remove the shame associated with them. It is difficult though, because the shame is a very powerful and overwhelming feeling and the easiest way would be to just to hold on to the shame and continue to escape and hide the source from myself. But I’m not gonna do that. And what the hell is “normal” anyway? Perfection? Conformity? Is it always the opposite of how we perceive ourselves, like an impossible illusion? Is it just an idea without a clear definition – an idea that works like a mirror with a blurred image of something that always feels out of reach?

Normal is whatever is natural for us to feel, to be. To deny what is a natural part of us creates a little black hole inside. A void. And we spend our whole life trying to fill that void with external things. But we can’t fill the void unless we search for whatever that was abandoned in ourselves and shamed by others – and set it free.

I hope I can do this. It is really, really difficult.