A reader asked me to write a letter explaining why I believe going through the healing process from child abuse is worthwhile. Here is the letter I sent her. I thought I would share it with all of you as well:
You asked me to write a letter to you explaining why I believe going through the healing process is worthwhile. In a nutshell, the healing process is the bridge from being a child abuse victim or survivor to living your life. As long as you stay in victim or survivor mode, your life is all about the past. You act and react based upon your hellish past, which keeps the past feeling ever-present. The healing process is the way out — the way to living instead of just existing and waiting for the blessed sleep of death. Your life can be more than just a daily (or hourly) exercise in pain avoidance.
Before healing, I hated myself. I did not believe there was a place in the world for me. I did not believe that I fit in anywhere. I saw no value in my life or in myself. I felt like I had to apologize for my mere existence. I believed I had to earn love and acceptance, but I was so broken that I could never do enough to earn my place at the table.
Now that I am much farther along in my healing journey, I see my life — my past, my present, and my future — through different eyes. I recognize that the only love and acceptance that was missing from my life was my own. I don’t have to earn my place at the table or fight for my right to exist. The fact that I exist gives me a place at the table. I don’t have to “do” to belong — I just have to “be.”
The biggest surprise was recognizing that I was not something broken that needed to be fixed. Instead, the abuse put blinders on me that caused me to see myself through a distorted lens. The healing process is helping me to remove the blinders and see what was always there — the miracle and beauty of ME! The essence of me — my spirit — has never been and never could be broken. The brokenness I perceived came from buying into my abusers’ lies. The healing process is not really about healing brokenness but, instead, about awakening to who I already am.
Choosing to heal is giving yourself a gift of love, compassion, and kindness. It gives you the gift of being content now, in the present moment, instead of waiting for some future point in time when all of the stars align so I can be happy. All that I need to be at peace with myself is already there inside of myself and has been all along. The healing process is what helped me remove the blinders so I could see it.
Good luck with your healing journey!
Photo credit: Hekatekris
One thing you probably know but which you didn’t write, is that the healing process is not black-or-white. There are times when the past consumes me, and times when I can focus on the present or future. Also, people don’t cease to be survivors if they’ve healed; they become more than survivors.
Hi, Astrid.
These are all good point. My history does not change through healing, but the way I view **myself** changes.
- Faith
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I do not really understand why I choose to heal. It was very “deep” and often it was just tenacity. Note: Other people might call it belligerent.
Sometimes it was that I really had no other choice, often it was that I wanted something different, anything and I did not care what it was.
The focus was often to get rid of something say the flashbacks only to discover I needed to know why I had flashbacks and what they could tell me.
I did not really get rid of the flashbacks they transformed into processing in a way that is right for now and now they are something that used to happen.
When in the process it feels agonizingly slow and without known purpose. When I look back I see it was really very fast considering the work needed to be done and I really did know what I was doing all along.
I find as experiences become in the past there is an unexpected phenomenon where there is space for other experiences.
“I find as experiences become in the past there is an unexpected phenomenon where there is space for other experiences.”
Well said, Michael.
I, too, have started out healing for one reason that blossomed into another. For example, the sole reason I started meditation was so I could sleep better at night. I had no idea how transforming the practice could be. In the moment, it all feels very slow, but in retrospect, my healing has been nothing short of amazing! :0)
- Faith
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I like!
This is a great perspective Faith….something my therapist has said to me many times is that when he tells me I am a valuable person or tells me other positive aspects of me, he is not just saying those things because he’s trying to build me up….he’s saying those things because he sees those things. Because all along those aspects of me are being shown to those around me but my perspective is skewed so I cannot always see them. He is simply mirroring what he sees
Hi, Barbi.
That is what happened to me at my high school reunion a few years ago. I thought that I was a very damaged person in high school who was being “fixed” in therapy, but I saw in the faces of high school friends that the best parts of me were ALWAYS there — **I** was the one who couldn’t see them.
- Faith
barbi,
I like your testimonial, what a faith.
No one could ever help you in the midst of problems but yourself. Your body is the temple of God, temple of miracles. So love yourself, take care of your body.
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