Getting Real with Mental Health -- You are Enough

I’m a writer. I always have been. I’ve written a book, poems, research papers, and love letters. I encourage my clients to journal, to put their words on paper. Writing is cathartic and cleansing. Putting pen to paper takes your thoughts and gives them substance. When clients write about their trauma the results can be inspiring and beautiful. This week a client wrote about the trauma she experienced as a little girl and the lasting struggle to find her sense of self. It is with her permission that I share her words.

“I’ve done this before. I wrote out my feelings and read them to myself, but not out loud as your actions play inside my head and the words are too terrifying to come out of my mouth. It’s easier to hate you inside of myself than with words others can hear. That’s the problem with secrets; you become great at keeping them. So here I am once again trying to accept what has happened, not merely putting it behind me, and not thinking of it again. I will say these words so my ears can hear what my mouth has always wanted to say but was too scared of the pain I would have to experience all over again. I was a little girl, even older I felt young, smaller than other girls as I hadn’t grown at all. I lacked boundaries, even when I said no it sounded like a yes, and all I ever wanted growing up was to be noticed but not in any other way than my beauty. I lacked self-control in the worst ways. My tongue was harsh if I chose to speak at all. Numbing it was the best choice I could think of.

You were weak if you needed therapy. You wouldn’t be wanted if you asked for help with the hard stuff. The darkness deep inside calling you worthless, a failure, and telling you to not even try because you know you’ll fail. So, you stayed in the same place with the same men, waiting for them to want you more, not as a girlfriend but as an option on a drunken night with the boys who call you pretty. You’ll feel better somehow. These were boundaries I lacked.

The last 20-plus years I ran from that little girl, the one who was stolen right out from under me. Telling me how pretty I am, but you would call me a fox. At least I knew I was pretty. You made me feel like a princess raised in dirt on a farm. That seems so long ago now, but why at times does it feel like yesterday too? The trauma that happened in that moment became intertwined in my body. I didn’t know whom to hate so I chose you. You never said sorry to my face which made it easier to hate you. You never admitted to me that what you did was wrong.

So, I held onto it for so many years not knowing how to put it down. How could I live without all that pain? Could I even be the same person? Would I have to change? I finally took my first steps toward asking for help even though it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. To finally let go of standing still like a little girl holding her pain in secret. I’ve been cleaning myself out; sifting through all the garbage; the suitcase full of pain.”

I’m telling you this now, I forgive myself for not thinking I’m good enough for a life of happiness and joy. I forgive you for putting your trauma on me as a little girl who knew nothing of self-love and only looked to men for her worth. I forgive you for teaching me that no boundaries are ok as long as you’re bigger and scarier than my ‘NO.’ I forgive you for the examples you showed me of who men really are. I tell you now, I’m letting go, not dropping it, or throwing it off a cliff, but accepting that this is a part of who I am. Core memories make me the strong, bold, caring, kind, loving, beautiful person I am today full of empathy and no longer rage. I forgive myself for not letting it go. I am in love with who I have always been. I will hold my little self and tell her how proud I am of her and all she has done. Little Shannon, you deserve to smile again, so this is my goodbye to the pain that isn’t who I am but what I thought I couldn’t live without. From Shannon to Shannon. Forever Shannon. You are enough!” ~ Shannon

Vicki Jones invites the public to send mental health questions to [email protected] and will post her answers in the educational column called, “Get Real With Mental Health.”