What a Year…

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE MAY CONTAIN MATERIAL RELATED TO SUICIDE, SELF HARM, SEXUAL ABUSE, CHILDHOOD ABUSE, FAMILY ABUSE, NARCISSISSTIC ABUSE, RELIGIOUS TRAUMA, PURITY CULTURE, RACISM, GASLIGHTING, FINANCIAL ABUSE, COVID-19, ETC. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

It is incredible what all has transpired in the time span of a year, for many of us, me included. This year started off with some of my worst experiences. While I often speak for mental health and excellent methods for healing, that did not leave me free of my own humanity. The beginning of this year was not free of suicidal ideation, of temptations to self-harm and only being on the brink of attempting on my own life, despite my vulnerability and outspoken nature.

I’m not about to sit here and gloat about what I accomplished in 2020, because I feel it is truly insensitive to not see reality for what it is. This year has been heavily traumatic for many of us. Instead, I’m going to list lessons that have formed my way of thinking, acknowledging that situations are not a one-size-fits-all scenario.

There is no perfect way to leave an abusive situation.

Despite the countless times I’ve spoken out about domestic abuse, the beginning of 2020 still left me in an emotionally abusive relationship that I was in heavy denial about. Despite the times I defended this individual, many listeners to my narrative were able to see the level of gaslighting and manipulation I was forced to endure by continuing that relationship. It is difficult to compare the relationship I had with my ex-husband and with the person I decided to keep in my life for 4 years. Both still leave me with lasting damage, even if I feel the abuse I endured with my ex-husband was more obvious. I still fell victim to grooming despite acknowledging that I had been easily malleable in the past to people who had no good intent for me. I learned that charisma did not steal away from lasting damage. This person damaged me in such a way that my jealousy continues to run rampant, that I have to check myself on my jealous tendencies, that my body dysmorphia has continued to treat me unkindly and I still look in the mirror with disgust because I was not reminded that I was enough for someone. I was constantly striving to be the best and good enough for people who simply were incapable of loving me properly, including romantic interests and family members alike.

I am still experiencing abuse.

I have learned that I am still experiencing financial abuse by family members. Last year, I composed a letter to a parental figure speaking my truth about my emotions, speaking of my feelings of feeling like a liability, sharing my honesty about the very real post-traumatic symptoms I experienced simply by seeing their names on my caller ID, and it was met with what? Silence. Ever since my suicide attempt in 2018, these family members took all my bills and asked me to send a certain amount of money to them each month. To this day, I still don’t know what my finances look like. They simply told me to continue sending them a lump sum each month and even had the nerve to ask me to send more in October and November without telling me why. “Your insurance went down, but I won’t tell you by how much.” I don’t have any clue what my finances look like and am constantly debilitated by my inability to talk to them about it because it leaves me with such high anxiety. Fortunately, come January, everything should be placed back into my hands, and I do plan to place stricter boundaries on this relationship because it is so harmful to my mental state still.

My peace of mind is important.

I’ve had to learn to let myself read into both red and green flags alike. I’ve begun to stumble into situations that sent me red flags simply because feeling lonely was so painful. I’ve had to let myself see who had my best intentions at heart, which is extremely challenging for someone with PTSD. It is so challenging for me to trust my experiences, my memories, and my level of gullibility is so high, it is difficult for me to not be easily groomed by others. Along with this came acknowledging my high levels of empathy and being forced to watch abusers become martyrs. I’ve had to watch people I care for enter their own domestic abusive environments without knowing what to do, because a) I was being heavily triggered, and b) I had a clear picture of what my own levels of denial looked like and knew that calling abuse out to a victim for what it is would likely lead to them traveling into their own rabbit hole of denial. It has been challenging placing boundaries and keeping my mouth closed, because when it comes to witnessing abuse, I had to simply learn to be supportive and hope victims come to their own conclusions and set their own boundaries. In some cases, it has forced my hand into placing boundaries I did not want to place simply so my own PTSD symptoms were not aggravated, and it’s heavily discouraging and can lead me into guilt.

I am likely autistic.

This one has been a deep struggle for me, but a reality that has helped line so much into place. When quarantine first began, my sister asked me an important question: “At any point did you consider that you may be autistic?” My initial response was to be offended, but the more I looked into it, the more I realized how much made sense and how stigmatized I was about the matter. I have a degree in music education, which required me to take a Music for the Exceptional Student course. Upon learning about autism and teaching a classroom of students with autism, I knew how much I related to them, and never thought to question whether or not I was autistic myself. I always assumed my high levels of empathy made it impossible for me to be autistic without realizing that there was a difference between relating to someone’s experiences and an ability to read social cues.

I am heavily clumsy, I am hyper-aware of my social interactions and often mask during social interactions, I stim when I’m excited or need to self-comfort, social interactions not only leave me anxious, but incredibly paralyzed, I experience emotional meltdowns, I delve into special interests to an obsessive level, I always interrupt people in conversation without realizing it and often apologize for my behaviors, I giggle constantly and at inappropriate times despite feelings of discomfort that has led people to believe I do not take things seriously, there was just so much leading me in one direction that made so much make sense. The price to get an official diagnosis is incredibly high and one I am unable to pay, but speaking to therapists, to special education specialists, and online assessments have led me to the conclusion that I am likely autistic, and I am so glad to have come to this realization because it has helped me to heal in many ways.

I experienced religious trauma.

If you travel into my previous blogs, you may notice the extent I speak of my 2019 fast. This fast tiptoed me back into purity culture, the same purity culture that was the leading cause of my suicidal ideations back in 2012. I continued calling it perfectionism without realizing the impacts the church left on me to place my worth in my level of purity. My way of living since my fast has been this: “Vulnerability feels better than shame.” Despite this saying, I was still ashamed about so much of me. I was ashamed of my pansexuality (which I was calling bisexuality because I was still subconsciously misunderstanding the confines of gender), and the church did not help with this shame.

I will always, always know, deeply and truly, that the relationship I formed with God in my 2019 fast was what ultimately saved my life. This is unquestionable to me, so I will never throw away my faith. Despite that, there are so many things that have left a huge question mark for me. The passing of George Floyd this year led me into an intense path into acknowledging what my white privilege has taught me and how many questions I needed to begin asking. My fast and relationship with God taught me about my purpose and my calling, which was under no conditions do I choose to stop loving unconditionally. Despite this message, it seemed when I was following this message, I was faced with resistance from those who were claiming to be followers of Christ. The more I learned, the more I learned of our country’s roots in white supremacy. I continued learning how translations of the bible in the early 20th century were being manipulated to enforce an agenda of hatred against certain communities, how recruiting of white supremacist groups was happening in the church, how my education in school was manipulated to soften the blows of slavery and hide America’s history of attempted genocide of Black people, and became furious that it took me 27 to 28 years of living to learn what had happened.

I cried as I watched footage of mass graves being dug by bulldozers in our country because of how quickly covid-19 was stealing lives, yet watched family members and members of churches I once attended slamming the use of masks, spreading messages fueled by hatred that was the complete opposite of the message I was loudly given, to love unconditionally. Now, it’s difficult for me to quote the bible knowing how much harmful intent went into translating it in our country. It’s difficult for me to pray because purity culture created a picture of God, and knowing how much even God and Jesus have been manipulated by those “Christians” who truly used God’s name in vain, it is challenging of me to know who I’m speaking to when I lift words into prayer. This next fast in 2021 will be a time of deeper deconstruction and reconstruction to help that picture become clearer.

Grief recovery comes with seeing things realistically for what they were.

Absolute thinking leads many into dark territories that are difficult to lighten. When it comes to grief and loss, our minds will weigh in either complete negative thinking or putting our losses onto high pedestals that cannot be brought down. While I placed boundaries and removed people from my life to help me, to say it was not accompanied with pain would be a lie. I learned of mindful self compassion and grief recovery during my 2020 fast, and they both taught me the importance of seeing things realistically. I reaffirmed my beliefs that forgiveness and trust are not exclusive to one another and addressed what it truly meant when I heard that it was okay to not be okay. I learned that adding guilt to my pain and feeling like a bad person for experiencing it was only delaying my healing. I had to acknowledge that I both cared about speaking out against injustice while simultaneously choosing to shake the world of my own belongingness by countering what family members believe and banishing myself from them, which was both freeing and incredibly painful simultaneously.

I had to learn that setting boundaries with a man who narcissistically abused me for 4 years was simultaneously relieving and heartbreaking. I learned what it was to simultaneously experience peace and chaos, because life is rarely only one or the other. I had to acknowledge that I was allowed to change my own toxic behaviors while accepting that I may never be forgiven for them. I had to learn that people both harmed me and that my pain was rooted in the fact that I wished they had shown me unconditional love in a time of need and wishing for that change while acknowledging I may never personally experience it. I am a mental health advocate who is also pro-quarantine, and I acknowledge that people not being on the same page about our pandemic has led to a normalization of it that should have never existed, because it is delaying help for those suffering mental illness and keeping us from being able to have normal interactions.

I refused to settle for less than my safety.

It didn’t happen at first, but eventually, it did, and I’m so glad that I listened to my needs more than I did my desires in this scenario. The many times I was pushed by the capitalist idea that my worth was based on my income and how I contributed to the work force seemed infinite, but I knew for the safety of my mind and health that returning to a work place outside of my home for most of this year was simply unsafe. I found a romantic partner that sent me bright green flags, who has helped me feel safe, understood, and seen, who has valued the level I love and has been a deserving recipient of it. I made tough decisions to reject offers that were not safe from me, including feeling pushed to return to customer service jobs that did nothing to contribute to the safety of my mental health, along with attending events that were unsafe due to the pandemic, even rejecting potential suitors because I decided to read into red flags I received. It can still be infuriating to see workplaces pushing their employees into unsafe environments for profit, and I send my condolences to anyone who has been pushed to the forefront of this pandemic in fear of their livelihood.

2020 was a difficult year.

I was still incredibly privileged this year in the methods of how I survived it. So many have been deeply hurt in ways I can’t imagine. Many faced evictions, unemployment, lost their lives to mental illness, lost their lives to covid-19, lost their lives to police brutality. This year exposed injustice. This year exposed schema shaped by a white supremacist agenda, to paint the picture of what a criminal is and refusing to acknowledge what criminals typically look like, that the poor and innocent are more likely to be in jail than the rich and guilty. This year exposed toxic positivity, toxic religion, white privilege and supremacy, selfishness, etc. I watched people call out “save the children” who refused to acknowledge how much happened in their own backyard, who tried to be experts on human trafficking and only causing more damage to those who spent their livelihoods specializing in it, who would call out on a pedophile ring without acknowledging the sexual abuse they or others experienced from family members, from church members, from their community. I have been attacked personally by my own past that I’m working to leave there, because my mistakes of 2018 that I have dissociated heavily from want to resurface. It is so difficult to acknowledge how challenging it is to trust my experiences, my thoughts, my memories, because I know the level of manipulation I fell victim to in the past and have been gaslighted so often.

I hope we can all work to remember this much: We are enough, just as we are. We are allowed to challenge toxic positivity, body shaming, slut shaming, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, in others, in ourselves. We are allowed our redemption arcs. We are allowed to experience pain without guilt. We are allowed to change our minds when presented new information. I can’t say what 2021 holds yet, but trust that by making it to today, by surviving to this moment, by taking things one day at a time without seeing into the future, you are doing enough. Healing is not linear, nor is there a specific formula for it. You are allowed to do what you must to survive, to feel comfort in the midst of the storm of your mind. You are loved and enough.