When I started therapy with the dozenth therapist of my life, my world was on fire. The flames of chaos once again swallowed my life. I attended the first few sessions of therapy, desperate to put out the firestorm before it consumed me. Fortunately, my therapist is one hell of a firefighter, and I’m one hell of a fighter. I’d never gotten much out of therapy, so I started this most recent bout of counseling with a dulled-down hope of maybe sprinkling a few metaphorical cups of water on the blinding heat of my rage. I could put out the “fire” and move on with life, just as I had before. In my initial sessions, my pain angrily poured from me in a mighty explosion of cuss words and rants. Like most therapy begins (and often ends for me), the first few sessions were spent dousing the roaring blaze of the immediate crises.
Usually, with the flames barely contained, I walked away from the embers, the pain invisibly burning holes in my soul
In previous rounds of therapy, after the crisis or crises had settled, I never stuck around long enough to dig too deeply into the still-hot cinders. Usually, with the flames barely contained, I walked away from the embers, the pain invisibly burning holes in my soul. But…a few things were different this time. For one, my therapist responded to my rage with what I would later learn is the most powerful resource of all, and we all possess it; her compassionate state of “Self” hit me with the intensity of a firehose on full blast. Her soothing nature, ability to bring clarity to chaos, and courage to remain calm amid my meltdowns ignited my curiosity. Trained to conceal my feelings, I couldn’t understand how she didn’t admonish me for my uncharacteristic, dramatic display of emotions. I was so intrigued that I decided not to ghost her after she helped me extinguish the blow of the most recent inferno.
In hindsight, my foray into feelings in those early sessions suggests that something in me was tired of my lifelong pattern of skimming the surface of my problems. Instead of retreating after smothering the flames, I paused long enough to survey the ravaged landscape around me. Devastated by what I saw, I knew I didn’t want to pass this world on to my kids. Exhausted and defeated, I was sick of choking on the smoke of the past and crawling from one fire to another. I was tired of fighting fires alone, and I finally had a therapist who seemed to see through the smoke and flames. She recognized that beneath my molten lava rage lay the embers of one compounded (largely ignored) trauma after another.
Realizing I had an ally to help lead me out of this fiery hellscape, I began resurrecting myself from the still-smoldering ashes of the past. I turned inward and began exploring the sources of my internal “fires.” Without the flames dancing around me, I finally had the mental capacity to learn skills that could not only help me deal with the present chaos but also give me the stability to dive deeper into past traumatic experiences. With an Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) score of 9.5 out of 10 (because I stubbornly refuse to accept full “points” for two of the criteria), it’s been an odyssey through hell. Although the healing process started with a firehose, the efforts to dampen the scorch of long-neglected trauma have been gradual, but productive. Over the past year and a half, I’ve sometimes extinguished one fire only for another to start. Through all of this, I have persevered in a renewed effort to inspect my “faulty wiring” and to assess the hostile conditions that sparked the fires. The initial lag of this work finally freed me from the shackles of survival mode.
And…just when I began to feel the blossoming fruition of unfettered joy, everything began to sour and darken. After four decades of moving from one fire to the next, the slow, painful excavation and examination of my long-held maladaptive beliefs incinerated my newly found sense of peace. Much of this anxious awareness has risen to the surface since starting Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy a month ago. It’s working. Almost too well. EMDR can be a highly effective treatment, but it can come with unpleasant physical effects and provide insight into things that previously hid in the dark. Add to this new-to-me therapy, severe seasonal depression, and the reignition of an old fire (or rather, a fresh perspective of an ongoing problem), and I am suddenly finding myself once again gasping for breath. Almost overnight, a fresh wave of depression has pulled me below the surface. The colors and sounds of the world are suddenly too much and I struggle to draw myself out of bed each morning. I gag on the “truths” I’m discovering about how I view myself and the world. I am devastated to discover that despite my beautiful family and my accomplishments, I am crippled by the belief that I am alone and I am terrified of abandonment. Somewhere along the way (pretty early in life), I became convinced that people are dangerous, feelings are unsafe, and I am worthless. With these painful discoveries, the sunlight within has withered into pungent decay.
This decay, however, will eventually give life to new growth. I, like so many of you, am a survivor and a little darkness (okay, fine, sometimes pitch blackness) will not scare me from this path. I am fighting with everything I have to not just pull myself from this darkness, but to revive my commitment to my healing journey. I am strong-willed and appreciate a good challenge, no matter how painful. Sometimes the pain propels me to dig my heels in even deeper. I will accept the next leg of this journey, even if it is filled with fatigue and a choking sense of claustrophobia. Tempted to escape the intensity of each sound and sight by retreating to the sweet and silent shelter of dissociation, I will continue to face life’s “fires” that I long suppressed. I feel like I have a sunburn and the world is clawing my tender skin, but I will not retreat into the shadows.
Like last time and unlike all the times before, I will stay put to move forward. I have already made it through so much, and I will not stop fighting for freedom from this pain, though I doubt I’ll ever be wholly emancipated from the shadows of my past. Still, I continue building the resources, strength, and support I need to wake from the nightmares of yesterday and get through future crises.
Thanks to decades of experience with depression, I know that eventually the pendulum will swing the other way. With that shift, like always, I will carry the lessons learned in pain to the other side. This time, I will also carry the lessons of healing. I have accepted that the road to healing is not linear, nor is it static. A healed version of ourselves does not lie positioned at the apex of a mountain. Life, whether filled with trauma or not, has its natural highs and lows; I’m riding a low at the moment. The shadows that dampen the light within will not stay. No matter how strongly the fires around me rage, they cannot extinguish the glow of the fire within me. I am a fighter, and I will keep fighting for freedom from the maladaptive beliefs that threaten to suffocate me. I will not suspend my ongoing efforts to tend to the gaping attachment wounds that leave me hollow. I will continue to persevere, just as I always have. This time, armed with more resources, support, and strength than I’ve ever had, I’m fighting fire with fire.
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.
Finally feeling truly alive for the first time in my life, I am writing from a place of gradual healing with an eye to the future and a hope of connecting with others on similar paths. Forced to withhold a tsunami of emotions deemed irrelevant under the roof of my childhood “home,” the blank white pages of my notebooks invited my raw reflections without judgment. Writing allowed me to free the burdens of my soul, but at some point, I muzzled myself. My pen lay dormant for years until, at 41 years old, I experienced a traumatic flashback during an everyday activity that shook me to the core. Five days later, I started writing about the things I had long withheld. I couldn’t stop. Written words have once again become my refuge. I now recognize that these words, resurrected from the ashes of my pain, may have the power to help others. Above all, I want to magnify and share the messages that I have most treasured on my journey: we are not alone and we don’t ever have to go back. This is where we live now and the future is ours.
