A Survivor's Journey to Healing

I don't have memories but images.  When I try to stay in a memory for more than a few moments, it seems to disappear.  Instead, I'm left with flashes.  Perhaps that's why I always had an appreciation for photographs. An image, a flash . . frozen.  Time literally forced to stop.  I wish I could remember better. Funny, the things our own bodies will do to protect us.  It's the not remembering that makes healing more difficult. How can you heal from something that you can't fully remember?  I got so good at not remembering that I even started to forget the good things as well.  Images. What do you do with almost 30 years of blurry, fast-paced, constantly moving, flashing images?  I can't remember.  Except for an orange chair.  A fucking orange chair.  One of those kiddie sized plastic orange chairs.  With the metal legs and the triangle cut out on the back. I remember it being upside down, metal legs up.  Funny, the things our brains will do to protect us. 

Part of depression (or mine, I should say)  is that you don't take care of yourself.  I've seen myself as lacking lately.  Lacking in good decisions. Lacking in self-esteem. Lacking in efforts towards healthy decisions and behaviors.  Tonight, I took a shower.  Not out of necessity but out of want.  I usually take showers in the morning.  As I lathered up the shower poof with my favorite coconut body wash, I wondered what it would be like to wash myself of this. Instead of the dust, dirt, and oils of the day, what if I were washing off the acts done upon me?  I wish that I could rid myself of this.  Scrub every speck of the event off my skin.  Erasre every intuition that this truly occurred.  As I got out of the shower, I put an extra bit of moisturizer on my face, massaging instead of rubbing.  I coiled the cotton fabric around my coconut coated curls. Dipped my fingers into my favorite Palo Santo body lotion, and realized...I deserve to treat myself like a queen.  I don't

"Both grounded and all over the place." I read that in my horoscope.  What a silly thing to say.  I am both grounded and all over the place.  I feel the dirt beneath bare soles while I simultaneously feel the spinning chaos and confusion of flight.  Everything makes sense but nothing makes sense.  I am both grounded and all over the place.  The feeling dropped within the pit of my stomach as I sat with the weight of my words. In the moment, I became my most authentic self while morphing into a person I had never known.  Grounded and all over the place.  I'm okay and not okay.  I live. I smile. I love fiercely. I tend. I nurture. I grow.  I also coward. I hide. I shake. I bury. I cry. I shrink.  Step 1: Speak.  Say the words. Utter the syllables. Annunciate each letter.  Breathe in the courage. Exhale the truth.  Check.  Grounded and all over the place.  And that's okay, for I'm grounded in my truth.  A.

I'm stuck on the question of why.  I was born into the Protestant church. The dreams of lazy Sundays were just that, dreams.  Church was second to family (although it seemed to compete, if not win, with family).  You learn quick to not to question when you're a pastor's kid. It wasn't my parents who taught me that but the church itself. It is what it is. Fate. Destiny. God's will.  So when I ask myself, God, the universe, why . .  I latch. I perseverate. I drown.  Why?  What did I do wrong as a human to deserve this?  Up until this time in my life, the question was "what".  I couldn't place a finger on the feelings of shame, guilty, embarrassment and denial that seemed to stir once in a blue Moon if my I allowed my mind to wander. They occurred sporadically, but flared when I or my family talked nostalgically about our life in a certain state. The tightness would form in my chest. The strings of my stomach would knot themselves.  Yet I couldn't rem

Memories are fickle. The older we get, the better our knowledge of the world becomes, the more substantial our cognition becomes. The older we get, the bleaker our perspective is, the more skeptical our intelligence is. Honestly, it sucks when you can't remember. You're aware of a truth, but you can't quite pinpoint how you arrived at said truth. You can't remember. Remember. Rememorari.  Re- + Memor. Call to mind. Mindful. I am afraid that I cannot remember. I am ashamed I cannot call to mind. Yet. I know. Know. G ecnāwan . C nāwan . Recognize. Identify. I firmly recognize. I assuredly identify. That something happened to me between the years 1993-1996, when I was just 3-6 years old. I have spent the past 23-26 years of my life repressing the events that occurred. It is through telling my story that I seek answers, to arrive at some sort of truth or the closet to it. It is through telling my story that I seek justice for the 3-6 year old me, a protector

CW/TW: childhood sexual abuse, sexual assault Storytelling is a transcendent of generation, culture, and ideology. From the beginning of time, human experience, no matter the context, has been recorded via storytelling. The Word itself is filled with parables, teaching us some of the most precious lessons of life. I'm here today to share my story. At 29 confusing, frustrating, blessed, challenging, privileged years of age, I have finally admitted to myself that I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I was also revictimized in adulthood when a "friend" sexually assaulted me. I do not say these words for sympathy nor do I want any pity. I am explicit when I use the word "survivor" instead of "victim" to identify myself. I survived the atrocities that were done to me. Even though sometimes I feel a little more victim than survivor, I am always a survivor and only sometimes a victim. I share my story to speak my truth. To speak truth is to spea