The Truth About Healing

The past few months have been extremely difficult. I have never felt so lost and out of touch with reality before. It feels like I am living life outside of my body. As a child, whenever I felt sad or upset or felt like I needed to cry, I would go to my playroom, close the door and sit on the steps, and cry. I would hide in my safe space and cry, away from everyone so that no one could see me. In therapy, I have been working on EMDR (eye-movement and desensitization and reprocessing) therapy, an approach to treating trauma and other symptoms and safely reconnecting the client through images, emotions, self -thoughts, and body sensations associated with the trauma. EMDR therapy has been one of the hardest and best things that I have done for myself. In EMDR, my therapist and I have been focusing on my trauma and the feelings that are associated with it.

Pain. Anger. Sadness. Hate. Disgusted. Mad.

It has been a weird feeling for me to not only feel all the emotions that I have been feeling over the last couple of months but to also acknowledge them (something that I have never done in the past). This is a rewarding experience and I am grateful that my brain has been able to process so much, but it is not easy. EMDR is extremely draining and has put me in a depressive state. Some days I feel purposeless and just down, other days I have an ounce of motivation and then I am extremely tired. I have little to no motivation to do anything, no passion, no drive. And it is taking a toll on me mentally and academically. This semester was the semester that I put myself first and I put my mental health first. I physically struggled with showing up to complete assignments and meet deadlines. Sometimes it is even hard to go to my laptop and log on to zoom. It did not help either that my university held only two wellness days ( days off that were given to students, but most used it to catch up on work instead of resting) in the semester without a break.

Right now, it takes everything in my body to show up. I try to fight for little Taylor, for my inner child, but it is hard. I want to show up for her and I want to tell her that it is okay to cry and that she does not have to be sad alone. Little Taylor is still healing and that is okay too.

I want to tell little Taylor that it is okay to not be okay, it is okay to cry, it is okay to be upset and angry, it is okay to feel lost, it is okay to just lay in bed and rest. I want to give little Taylor permission to rest. To let her know that she is human and that she needs to cater to her body right now. To let little Taylor know she is so loved and supported. To let little Taylor know she is a survivor, a warrior, a queen. To let little Taylor know to be fearless and courageous. To let little Taylor know that it is not her fault. To let little Taylor know she did the best she could at that moment.

EMDR helped me to unpack my sexual violence and to understand what happened to me and how I was violated. EMDR also made me realize and come to the truth of my IPV relationship that I was violated more than once. Accepting this as my truth has been scary. I did not want to be a statistic instead, I pushed it deep down into my body hoping it would just go away. It did not. A few weeks ago, around March, I had the worst breakdown of my entire life. I have never cried and screamed so much. I was ANGRY. I was SAD. I was MAD. How could someone do this, I thought? I yelled ‘why me?’

I realize now that I am more than a statistic and my trauma does not define me. I am a survivor of sexual violence, but I am human first. EMDR helped me to accept my trauma and now I am choosing to heal and give love to little Taylor.