Surviving While Trying to Thrive: Life with CPTSD (as published in The Friday Edition of HeartBalm Healing at https://heartbalm.substack.com)
“Surviving while f*cking trying to thrive” was the initial title for this piece but it is a better explicit beginning statement to describe how frustrating and difficult complex trauma is; how life-jarring trying to heal from abuse and neglect can be. And the irony of trying to heal and face old wounds that expose and break us apart, and dismantle old paradigms, stories, and flimsy safety features while at the same time attempting to hold ourselves together.
Life with complex trauma is a roller coaster ride of uncertainty – plunging us into deep crevasses only to find ourselves back on the rising swells of hope and possibility. Everyone that has experienced trauma has their own way of dealing with and expressing the deep hurt and pain, the losses and never agains, and hopeful rays of light that come in whims of uncertainty and unreliable, chaotic thunderbolts. You may know someone that has alluded to past abuse or childhood trauma, or this may be you.
In the end, we all have the wish to heal, to thrive, to feel fully into our body and mind – and into the moment. We long to know what true love feels like and looks like – we long to trust another fully and let ourselves unfold. We yearn to know who we are without the shackles and memories of traumatic experiences haunting our every breath, and the words and actions of callous abusers creeping through our mind disguised as our own thoughts and beliefs.
I heard someone say “healing is ruthless honesty.” It stung.
Pains and hurts find us and bite the hardest when we are at our most vulnerable.
It brings us to our knees and as we grow, we find a similar sting from events and others that we meet along our life’s path.
Patterns return.
Cycles cycle.
It hurts.
It burns.
It tears us apart again and again as we try to heal and piece ourselves together.
The saying “two steps forward and three steps back” is an understatement but we know what it means.
Hope: the thing that keeps expectation alive – of good things, salvation, and relief to come.
The princess in the locked tower waiting for rescue by a handsome prince.
But this is not a fairy tale and hope always disappoints. If it were not for the constancy of disappointment, we might still have an ounce of hope left but now there is nothing for it – hope is long gone, and good riddance too. I often wonder what is left when all hope is gone.
I hike, I write and I think. I read.
I watch and listen to teachers, healers, and therapists, and I exist.
I study nonduality, I write poetry, I soak up the sun.
Life goes on and nothing really changes except the healing – the endless f*cking trying – to integrate all parts of myself, heal and become whole, understand the universe, and let the past go.
To be free of what I think is holding me back, what keeps me imprisoned, and feeling separate from the world.
My trauma –
a fortress surrounded by a huge moat filled with alligators pretending to be a barrier of safety,
an unwanted prison,
keeping dangerous and unknown others at arm’s reach.
The drawbridge comes down but rarely.
Easier to just keep it drawn and wonder if the food and money will hold out or if I will get lucky and die before I have to worry about diminished resources and more feelings of lack.
Life can be cruel in these ways.
Dead woman walking.
A ghost at the grocery store.
Waiting for death – wondering at life.
No more hope.
No more fire.
No more abiding.
F*ck it!
Writing has been a way of speaking my truth. Of salving my pain. Of not normalizing or minimizing trauma but breathing in and breathing out ruthless honesty. Of understanding and learning to love and nurture myself. It has been a further effort to share what I have learned and unearthed along the way. I have become an archeologist of trauma – simple and complex, and an autobiographer of the forced, unbidden, experienced, and accepted life stories and the story of survival and attempts to reach the gold ring of thriving. It is a way to help share light, love, and understanding with others who are also struggling, and say fervently – you are not alone; those whose life has been overshadowed by abuse, trauma, and neglect, and are venturing to appreciate themselves, heal, and step more fully into their own lives.
As I stand back as an observer, this space of HeartBalm is my brain unfolded, my heart unfurled, my way of being and seeing and processing life – relaxed and sometimes pausing in the eternal moment of Now. The entirety of it is a map of sorts – of my life, the trauma points, the harrowing journey from complex abuse and non-sensical actions and events to learning about love, life, connecting and belonging; the mysteries of this universe, the world, and everything in between. Trying to make sense of it all when none of it – this life – has rarely ever made sense to me.
I believe there was a gift in my trauma, and the world not making sense. In light of life’s cognitive dissonance, it gave me an opening to poke holes in the false reality of what I was told to believe; in my deserving of being used, exploited, and abused, and unworthiness to be loved, to belong, and to be kept safe. There was always something seemingly there – where I knew that I was Love, I was innocent and that those trying to make me wrong, hurt me, tell me I was different, and endeavoring to make me believe that I had no worth was not true. It was nonsensical to me somehow. That knowing has stayed with me even in the moments of life and experience when I forgot myself and carried on believing what they showed me and told me.
A deep truth and awareness arose out of that constant gaslighting and projection of others’ broken selves, deep insecurities, and unhealed wounds onto me. Those adults projecting their own lack and fears onto a child by way of abuse and neglect should reflect clearly the true reality of how weak, small, and selfish abusers are, as well as mentally ill. The overarching trajectory and path of my life were and are buried in their stories about me, how they treated me, the trauma and neglect I endured throughout my life with them, and how I must continue to endure it today.
As I heal, and bring light to the false stories, the pain and hurt of what I experienced at the hands of those that should have loved me, and the patterns of betrayal, disregard, and abuse happening from those in my interpersonal sphere I am enlightened by it. It shows me clearly what I am not and never was.
As I heal, I am able to see more and more clearly, and meet parts and pieces of who I am, who I thought I was, and how I functioned, struggled, and survived. How I got here.
As I heal, I am able to allow more fractured parts of myself, and unhealed wounds to come forth into the light of my awareness and be transformed. I am more able to open to whether the triggers, flashbacks, and raging storms of reemerging pain and allow them to come forth to be integrated into the infinite spaciousness of who I am in this moment. My-being – my-self is finding a new path forward that includes all of me – the more integrated sense of being – that which I know as my innate and authentic self.
As I heal, I feel more empowered to do what I must do to learn how to love life, love others, and especially love myself. I am learning to stand in my truth without apology, and embrace the fact that, as the saying goes “I have no more f*cks to give.” My journey is mine – it is sacred – it is not for anyone else to judge, shame, or tell me what, when, why, or how quickly I need to get there. Healing includes grieving, and grieving takes time. Healing is uniquely personal. It is a journey – whether done with the help of someone or others you trust or taken on yourself. It is your sacred gift to yourself and requires no opinions from anyone else.
Healing from trauma takes an unrelenting spirit and mindset to embrace who you truly are as innocent, as Love, and as a bold, courageous, unapologetic, unique, and deserving being in this world, at this space and time.
Healing takes no prisoners and leaves our internal landscape scorched and raw at times.
Healing allows for transformation, truth, peace, and love but one must be willing to accept it as it comes and leave the rest behind.
Healing asks for the death of old ways of being, old ways of existing, and old ways of thinking about and holding ourselves.
Healing is not a magic pill or cure or something that happens overnight. It is a process – a practice of patience and steadiness, of presence, of loving yourself through the darkest nights, of opening yourself up to the possibilities of your life, and readying for life to show you what you are not so you can understand the truth of who you are.
I heard someone say “healing is ruthless honesty.” It stung at first but now I understand as Rumi said:
The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
_Rumi, “Rumi’s Little Book of Life: The Garden, The Soul, The Heart, and the Spirit”
To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:
- Subscribe to the HeartBalm Channel on YouTube. A growing collection of “HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny” are available.
For other helpful articles, tools, and topics visit the HeartBalm Archives, and for healing-guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page. To subscribe or to find out more information go to the HeartBalm website.
Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.
Sunny Lynn, OMC is a spiritual counselor, writer, poet, photographer, meditator, and nature lover on a mission of transmuting complex trauma through self-love, healing, and bringing balm to hearts everywhere. She has a blog and podcast – HeartBalm at heartbalm.substack.com that speaks on the topic of self-care and self-love, mindfulness and healing while living with CPTSD.
Thank you for sharing! Me too.