Going from survival to I survived (and why it sucks).

Ok, let’s give survival mode its proper due. It helped me feel functional, responsive, and capable. It allowed me to show up for everyone, especially my daughter, when I had no way to give anything of myself.

Here’s the thing, it’s brutal!

The job is simple: just keep going, put your head down and don’t stop. Don’t feel, don’t ask questions. You know what! Don’t even process, just do the next thing!!

Then one day it gets quiet, the chaos is over, and all the emotions come vomiting up and you have no clue what to do. Or I didn’t, anyway.

I had to actually feel all the things that have happened over the last 15 years. In order to move into I survived thought process, I had to feel everything.

I didn’t like the feelings; I didn’t like the things that happened or were said, or who I was during this time.

I didn’t feel like I was healing or had closure on any part of it. It felt too raw and at the moment to feel anything but pain and numbness.

I realize, though, that all of that pain was there to show me I survived. It wasn’t the straightforward process I thought it would be. It was more like riding a dinghy in the ocean with sharks all around and you’re bleeding from every hole in your body, while trying to hold on for yourself and to hold on to your child.

I see now the reward, the freedom, the clarity, the boundaries.

I did that! I found land; I built a home; I grew a garden!

Ok, ill stop with the sinking ship/ deserted island analogy.

In all seriousness, it sucks. I will be ok.

I was ok going through it, I’m ok coming out of it, I will be ok moving forward, and so will my daughter.

By the grace of God, I survived, and that is the best feeling in the world!