Past to Present Experiences
If you are alive, you have baggage from the life you have lived. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, most people will carry their past experiences with them, inserting the energy from those past experiences into their present.
The classic example of this is when someone has been cheated on in a relationship and then finds a new relationship, only to constantly worry, or even accuse the new lover of the old lover’s deeds. He/she likely has never given any reason to believe he/she would be a cheater, but because of their partner’s past experience of being cheated on, they now have to continually prove themselves.
We all know someone like this, don’t we? I know several, whether it be this scenario or others. Most people have trouble really and truly moving on after being hurt, especially when it is a deep trauma. This is all relative too, isn’t it? Two people can have a similar experience and view it completely differently. What will devastate one, the other will just brush off, so I’m not going to categorise the trauma, but rather suggest this is to be interpreted by the individual.
My Past Trauma
Like most people, my deep trauma is actually plural. I will use a couple of my traumas for example here. My ultimate deep trauma was child abuse. From the age of 2-12, I was physically and emotionally abused. To top it off, the sexual abuse began when I was 9.
As difficult as it was to get over reacting to things aggressively, either verbally or physically, I knew it was not socially acceptable, so I fought hard as a teenager to react appropriately on the exterior. My internal reaction was a different story. I had so much anger inside, and negativity. Oh my, the negativity was eating me alive.
In the end, the emotional abuse was the hardest to get over, and still will try to rear its ugly head. All of the work I have done to get over my abuse involves the emotional abuse, as once my thoughts became clearer and positive, my anger left the building. I do not mean to make this sound trivial, because let me tell you, I worked myself to the bone, and for years. It was not easy. It was a decision that required full commitment on my part, and still does.
The Consequence
Now, I did not project abuse onto my future relationships. I did not choose men who were abusive, and I did not expect men to be abusive. I knew right from wrong, so I knew my experience was the extreme and that not all people would do this, or experience this. I did however, believe every single word that was uttered to me during my 10 years of emotional abuse.
My Mantra
It became my mantra. ‘You’re stupid, ugly, useless, worth nothing, will never be loved, and will never mean anything to anybody’ is how it read, every single day, especially when something did not go my way, or when I failed at something I had been working towards. ‘Of course’ I would tell myself, ‘you don’t deserve success. What in the hell made you think you could do this?’, and then the rest of the mantra would chime on in.
This exacerbated the other now past traumas of my life, making them so much worse than what they really were, I can say now, looking back. These traumas included being bullied at school by girls who would go out of their way to make me feel unsafe, stupid, ugly and worthless. They didn’t know my mantra, but would it have made a difference?
Maybe I was wearing it more on my sleeve than I thought. Maybe that’s what drew them to me and knew they could easily put me down to make themselves feel better. That’s right. Now I understand that that is all it was – they had low self-esteem and hated themselves, and to feel better, someone else had to feel worse.
Fuelling my Mantra
None-the-less, their actions really proved my mantra right. Oh, and my mantra got so much more encouragement with relationship after relationship ending in cheating. Of course I wasn’t good enough to hold someone’s attention. Duh. Crazy thing is, I didn’t expect the next one to cheat, or the one after that. I thought I started fresh with each relationship…. But oh no, I did not. While I didn’t expect them to cheat, I did expect them to hurt me.
I would put my guard up more and more each time, until I could barely feel anything. How was that supposed to work then? I’m supposed to find a loving relationship while I’m being a cold hearted biatch? Nope. It was time to face my ultimate trauma so I could work through all my other traumas and stop feeling so traumatised all the damn time. It was time to stop being the victim, and start being a survivor.
Face the Facts
Starting with the abuse, I had to face facts. I was a child. I was a helpless, innocent child that was not responsible or in control of the situation. I can ask myself why I didn’t scream for help or runaway or tell a neighbour all I want, the answer is the same…. I was a child.
Just for the record, children believe adults are supermen and women. They always have the answer, no matter the question, and at certain ages, they know every damn thing that is going on in your life. Why then would a child think all the adults in his/her world don’t already know about the abuse?
And in my case, sad to say, I did reach out, twice, with no result. Both times I reached out to external people – a friend who brought the information to her parent, and one of my teachers. No one said a word or lifted a finger to help. While I knew what was happening wasn’t right, people blatantly unwilling to help just fuelled my mantra into over drive.
Anyway, the point is, I was a child who was not making this happen, or responsible in any way for what was happening. I wasn’t giving off signals, or behaving poorly by mouthing off, or let’s say it, stupid, ugly, useless, worthless, or unlovable. What I was was a vulnerable human being too young to help herself. The one and only one to blame was my abuser. He made that choice every single day to do and say the things he did. He, and only he, was responsible.
Taking my Power Back!
With that weight lifted off my shoulders, all my ‘what if I….’ questions left. It did not matter if I did this or did that, I was not responsible for what happened any more than I was responsible for the raising and setting sun each day. This was fact and this fact actually gave me some empowerment back.
What helped even more was the realisation that he wasn’t abusing ME, he was an abuser. Replace me with anyone else and the same thing would have happened. He would have done and said all the same things, without a doubt. It wasn’t me. There wasn’t something about me that made me deserve to be abused.
This new found revelation freed me to my core. Suddenly I was able to look at my other traumas in a similar way. Those girls who bullied me endlessly for years would have found someone else to bully if I wasn’t there. It wasn’t about ME, it was about them. Those guys would have cheated on whomever they were with, because they had problems. Again, not about me. People are not sitting around coming up with ways to hurt me any more than I am the centre of the Universe. Plain and simple fact.
Taking Responsibility
Now, I’m not saying I didn’t have any role to play in failed relationships, etc… But this new found peace made me capable of reflecting on my past actions, owning them, and deciding to change them. Entering into a relationship scared of being hurt meant I wasn’t giving 100% to it. It was inevitably going to end.
If I wanted my life, not just my relationships, to fair better, I needed to face the facts about what I have control over, and what I do not. I did not have control over being abused, but I do have control over carrying it with me in a negative way forever. I don’t have control over someone else’s actions, but if I spend all my time giving 100% to my man, giving my best to the relationship, then if he decides to piss off, at least I know I gave it my all.
You Get What You Put In
And guess what? I’ve survived worse. If someone decides I’m not the one for them, I will undoubtedly mourn the loss, and then pick myself up and survive! This I know for sure, just like I know if I spend even 5% of my time fretting his cheating and/or leaving, that’s 5% I’m not putting into the relationship. And what’s more? I’d be putting 5% negative thoughts of cheating and pain into my head. What do I expect from that? You get what you put in, in all things in life. Fact.
Books to Help
The book that helped me the most during this stage of my recovery was:
Interested in learning how I can help you or someone you love? Visit my website to see how I can help. Better yet, book a complimentary call to chat!
