Fragmented (continued)
I decided to tell some of my friends. They didn’t want to hear much either. They were just kids as well and, like me, had no idea how to deal with what had happened.
So, I stopped talking. I had to lock this new persona that had been traumatized deep inside myself. I had no guidance and I did not understand my world or who I was in it. Everyone pretended that nothing had happened. But it had.
Over the years, I drove this fragmented piece of me deeper and deeper. The repercussion of this was devastating; particularly, as a teen. I could be well-behaved one moment and a runaway the next. My world was as chaotic and upside-down as it could be.
Reclaiming that part of me was a slow process and evolved over time. As an adult, I searched for many different types of therapies from traditional psychotherapy, scream therapy, alternative treatments, and meditation to name a few. Although, I may have been doing this gradually in bits and pieces, it has only been recently, and after decades, that I had the courage to turn and fully welcome that traumatized person inside of me.
For so many years, I had tried to understand who I had been and figure out how to get back to that person. I now realize that there was no going back. I could become whole again by stopping the damaging secrecy that had been all but forced upon me.
This realization has given me a good amount of serenity. The things that happened, happened to me but stopped controlling me long ago. I realize that the family and society that forced this silence upon are still out there to one degree or another – but I am no longer listening to them.
I have reclaimed the raped, traumatized, and isolated adolescent that I was; I have reclaimed the confused and lonely young adult that I was; I have reclaimed the loving but frightened young wife and then single mother that I was. We are one now. And I am celebrating the goodness and wellness in my life, the happiness in the family that I have built, and the joy in my own accomplishments.