Becoming Unapologetically Me

I’m back in therapy again, trying to unpack the last of my childhood trauma and unhook its consequences from my body and soul. When I speak of consequences, I don’t mean for my abusers or those who failed to keep me safe. I mean for me. What other people have done to me has shaped my entire life and probably every single event in it. I’ve held myself back forever. I’ve wasted my talents, endured further abuse into adulthood, given my entire being to other people and basically drowned myself in order to appease those who perpetually disapprove of me. Now I’m fucking done! Let me tell you how I’m becoming unapologetically me.

Weaponised Shame.

One of the ways that abusers and their enablers manage to control you is by consistently critiquing everything you say and do. It’s like slow torture. They tear to shreds, every ounce of your self worth until you don’t even know who you are anymore. This is so you stay in your box and their filthy secrets can be kept. If you are made to feel small, unimportant, and dirty, then it’s unlikely that you will tell anyone outside of that circle what’s been happening to you.

They fill you so full of shame and self loathing there’s no room for any light to shine. You walk around in a dark cloud of despair wishing you were dead. Master manipulators look real shiny on the outside, but scratch the surface and you enter a world of depravity you can’t imagine. Weaponised shame is lethal. It will kill you slowly from the inside out. It will start to show in your face, you’ll become sick physically and your eyes will cease to shine. You may enter into addiction of some kind to escape or end up in a mental institution and find yourself very much alone. You will then be blamed for embarrassing and destroying the family and hence become the black sheep.

No Room For Shame No More!

All of the above has happened to me, and more. But my natural wisdom prevailed, and instinctually I began to speak up for myself. I studied and read and empowered myself to understand that I had and still was being controlled. A large part of my adult life was spent seeking out that control in relationships because, truly, I didn’t know any better.

When I realised how my behaviours were impacted by my childhood abuse a door opened that cannot be shut now. I started to detach from that shame and this fireball energy and personality started to fill me up. It felt like I was meeting this really cool girl, I’d always dreamed of being, for the first time. I started writing and getting published which really pissed off a lot of people. I embraced my beauty and sexuality and understood that both of these divine qualities brought with them significant power. That power ebbed and flowed as I struggled with the brainwashing and emotional manipulation I had previously endured. It took and still takes real commitment to myself to not be self-destructive and go back to that dark place.

The Final Farewell.

My therapist said something last night at my session that has really changed my perspective. She said that even though I’m not enduring abuse anymore, I still have a tendency to return to that place. It’s like a drug for me. Addiction is escaping reality. I’m still trying to escape reality even though I have a really good life now. Still looking for approval and acceptance from those who have none to give me. I’m still sometimes making decisions and choices from the place of my wounded child and I need to quit doing that. She told me I need to take that little girl by the hand and make decisions for her from the place of my adult self. That little one is still running riot in fear and confusion. “You need to become unapologetically yourself.”

And there you have it, the solution and final farewell to all that has hooked me into trauma response living. Becoming unapologetically me is the answer. I never really understood how I was supposed to do that, but understood that I needed to. Just like all addiction, I need to take it one day at a time, one minute at a time one decision at a time. I choose adult response or trauma response; it’s a decision to take control of myself, therefore protecting little me and soothing her. It’s a choice. A choice to commit to all that I am. To write freely, use my voice, be sexual, be beautiful, be my fiery self. I have made that commitment now that I understand that I can.

Magic!