Holidays and Being a Survivor...

Thankfully it's the new year and the holidays are over.  Holidays are such a different thing to a Survivor and more so to a Ritual Abuse Survivor.   Fraught with triggers and unwelcome anniversaries they are a bit like walking through a mine field, eyes ever watchful for your next step and thankful in each moment to have survived the last. 

I got lost a bit.  Isolating and hunkering down, the body sick and the mind running, ever running from the truths that still wait to be seen.   Depression threatened to drown me in sorrow and no matter how hard I tried to swim to the surface a fierce undertow of grief and terror would drag me further down.

My house became a disaster area, and I had no energy to clean, it seemed I had barely enough energy to breathe. Overwhelmed.   Overwhelmed by the house as it fell apart, by the holidays, by the memories leaking through even though I was fighting them tooth and nail, overwhelmed by my body's inability to stay well and by the insomnia I battled each night.

In the end, simple things brought me up and out of that space.   Thankfully the holidays passed.  My pup Bella and her never ending joy at being alive and her unconditional love for me.  Music that can change everything in an instant.    My determination to survive.

This morning as I walked Bella the world outside was frozen, everything covered in a fine, brittle coat of ice.  Silent and still except for the sound of her paws and my feet as we walked through the grass.   I feel like my mind is like that.... frozen over pond, and I am walking on it, tentative with each step, terrified I might misstep and break through the ice and sure of my immanent death upon doing so.   There are memories waiting to be seen, validated and accepted and I am so filled with terror and all I hear is the shouting of DEATH, BEWARE, GO BACK.

But I can't go back, I won't, and I won't let the abusers win. I have to find that space where I am no longer fighting the process.   Maybe not welcoming what comes next, but simply opening up, accepting and not running the other direction.  I'm still unsure how to do it, but I have to, I know that much.   There's no way out but through.  

This morning in the freezing cold, the grass crunching beneath my shoes and waiting impatiently for the pup to finish her business.....I paused, knelt down and looked at the grass.   Each blade of grass was coated in a fine powder of ice crystals and at the tip a droplet, frozen solid... it was beautiful and took my breath away.  Perhaps when I find a way to open up and stop fighting the process, instead of terror beyond it, I will find beauty, joy, peace?  I hope so, and in the meantime I am learning to stop resisting.   Listening to my body as it grows sick and throbs with pain.  Listen, it's saying, please Listen and hear me.   It has a story to tell, and I must be it's witness.

So I will do my best to stop resisting, stop running away and simply be present.  I will listen and hear and bear witness to what must be heard.

Thank you, for surviving, for fighting each day to be present and honor your path, for all the hard work you do... I am grateful for the way you light the path ahead of me.....