Today I begin sharing my story. It’s not all going to happen at once. I can’t take it, and neither can you. I found myself in the perfect trifecta of a shitstorm.
Strand One: Childhood Trauma
I was confident I knew what I was dealing with. My healing journey from childhood trauma started in my early twenties. I thought that’s what was causing the disruption in my emotions, my physical body, my mental well-being, and my spiritual wholeness.
What I learned is that I had only dealt with the most obvious part of the trauma. The part of the iceberg that is sticking out of the water. There was so much more hiding beneath the water that I was unaware of.
So that sucked.
But it was necessary for me to heal.
That’s one strand of my trifecta. And we will dive deeper into that in my next post… I promise.
Strand Two: Work, Work, Work
The second strand in my trifecta of a shitstorm has to do with my work environment. Like everyone else, when the COVID pandemic hit in March, 2020, I started working from home. As a teacher, I set up a classroom in my home and continued with my students, very successfully actually. But for me, being sent home in March, 2020 hit a bit differently.
That school year, one of my students repeatedly threatened to bring a gun to school to kill me and then kill everyone else in the classroom. Try to imagine my stress and anxiety levels. While this was immediately reported, absolutely nothing was done. The threats continued, I continued to pressure for support, and I was told the student was only joking, not to take it seriously, and given excuses for his threatening behavior. When the entire country closed down in March of 2020, I was so relieved, because I knew that my students and I were finally safe.
Strand Three: Physical Injury
The final strand of my trifecta was a back injury, and I was in a lot of pain. I sometimes wonder if sitting in my teaching chair for so many hours working during COVID caused this. In any event, the medical professionals were very unhelpful. Over a short period of time, they gave me three different diagnoses and didn’t seem interested in helping me get better.
Immobilized by pain, simple daily tasks like taking trash bins to the curb or bringing in groceries were extraordinarily painful for me. Without help, a lot of things around me were neglected.
Braid Them Together
So, imagine a human being, vulnerable and raw from stripping away layers to heal from childhood trauma, discovering deeper wounds they didn’t know existed. Threats to their life begin, but the people who can help refuse to step in, so the anxiety builds quietly over the trauma. Meanwhile, they are in such physical pain that they can barely function in their daily life, which causes so much around them to begin crumbling, neglected and falling apart. The depression begins to swallow them up.
That was me.
What Do You Do with a Shitstorm
What I can tell you is that healing from any and all of this is not linear. It’s a swirling vortex of scribbled lines that intersect and sometimes just go off the edge of the paper altogether.
Then suddenly reappear.
Sometimes when you’re in the middle of doing a deep dive into one of the strands, a different one will rear its ugly head at you and command your full attention.
It’s not easy. And it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
But we’re going to find our light, and never dim it for anyone. Who’s with me?
