Compassion is the Light

Once I got sober, I did a decent job processing my childhood trauma.  Walking through it wasn't easy but it was less intimidating than the secondary trauma as an adult.  Secondary trauma, in my opinion, is harder to work through because a lot of times it involves some conscious choice.  The dread of my adult trauma was far more paralyzing than my childhood trauma.  

I had a good lull in time between processing my childhood trauma, and then PTSD symptoms surfacing caused by my adult trauma. After working so hard on the childhood stuff, I hoped the rest would just fall away and I wouldn't have to acknowledge it.  I wanted it to not have an impact.  How could it not, though?  My brain and body eventually made me very aware of that.

As my nightmares came more frequently and my intrusive thoughts got louder, I thought I was spiraling backward.  My thoughts of worthlessness and self-hatred crept in. I blamed myself far more than I deserved.  I was losing my grasp on reality again.  With everything I had learned and healed already, I knew what I needed to do, but I couldn't bring myself to give the adult me the same compassion I gave the child me.  

My way of coping was to shut down.  I had quite a few quiet therapy sessions cause I couldn't bring myself to approach it.  My therapist had watched me avoid this part of my story like the plague, and knew I couldn't do so forever.  She was constantly reminding me to be compassionate with myself.  To show myself the same gentleness I would anyone else.  On a particularly rough day, Amanda was talking about how I wasn't going to be able to get out of the dark without going through it. There's no going around darkness.  I tend to get snarky when I'm feeling vulnerable so my stubborn retort was "Nah, I just need to find a light switch."  She struck a nerve and she knew it.  She proceeded with, "Yes, turn on a light, but you still have to walk through the yuck.  It's much easier if you turn on a light. Compassion is that light.  Compassion is the light."

That was my turning point. I had walked myself right into it.  She was right.  I couldn't keep telling myself it didn't have an impact when clearly it did.  When you face death, it's impossible for it not to affect you.  As that adult trauma was happening, my mind and body had my childhood trauma coursing through it all at the same time.  They weren't the same but they were linked.  My adult body may have experienced it, but it was also my inner child being traumatized all over again.  It was that little girl who needed the light of compassion so that she could blend with the adult me- who had found the side of life worth fighting for.  

-JJ

"There's no going around darkness… ‘Yes, turn on a light, but you still have to walk through the yuck.  It's much easier if you turn on a light.

Compassion is that light.’” -JJ