Regaining Your Experience
Don’t talk. Don’t tell. Don’t remember. This seems to be a constant reminder to adult’s who have experienced childhood trauma. They want to let their abusers live out their lives unnoticed or unaffected by their crimes.
This saddens me deeply.
The only way to regain those parts of ourselves that were stolen by the perpetrators is to own them by fulling integrating them into our life stream. This is different than being hypersensitized to your memories. It’s deeper than that.
“I’m continually impressed by how difficult it is for people who have gone through the unspeakable to convey the essence of their experience. It is so much easier for them to talk about what has been done to them — to tell a story of victimization and revenge — then to notice, feel, and put into words the reality of their internal experience.”
The Body Keeps the Score, page 47 (emphasis added)
Staying a victim keeps us in the same continuous circle of fear, need and retaliation.
To be a conqueror and overcome our past, we have to look at it squarely in the face. Own it, feel it and put into words the reality of our experience. Regurgitating the scene is the beginning. Discovering your body memories, talking about the intensive horror, removing the stigma around our confession — this is how we move on.
“Our scans revealed how their dread persisted and could be triggered by multiple aspects of daily experience. They had not integrated their experience into the ongoing stream of their life. They continued to be “ there” and did not know to be “ here” — fully alive in the present.”
The Body Keeps the Score, page 47 (emphasis added)
What does it mean, then, to be fully alive?
The words that fill the pages of this blog are indicative of a life being lived in the here and now. Fully alive to suffer through the experiences of my childhood — for one reason, to expunge the pain and incorporate those pieces into the stream of my life.
I have regained so much territory that the enemy stole.
Whole, incorporated and ready to live. That’s why I tell my story. Not just for you, but for me.
It’s God’s way.
As Zach Williams so appropriately sings, “God is a chain breaker. If you’ve got pain, He’s a pain taker. He’s a way maker.”
Originally published at http://prisonerbynocrimeofmyown.com on February 23, 2021.
