(Deciding to Heal is a new series on Sociology of Sheena after a reader posed the question, “So you just decide to heal?” If you have not already, you should start at the beginning and read part one, Deciding to Heal: Side Effects and the First Trigger and then part two, Deciding to Heal: A Quote and a Trepid Step Towards Rage.)
Let me start this by saying I am not a doctor, a licensed therapist, an ordained spiritual leader or anything of the sort. I am Sheena LaShay and I am just telling you my story. It may help or hinder you. It may tickle or trigger you. It may soothe or anger you. It may do all those things at the exact same time. Read at your own risk.
I’d like to call this part, part 2.5. I’m trying to follow in a sort of chronological order of the various steps it took me to heal myself, but the way our brain remembers or what seems important in the moments doesn’t always follow a linear time line. Forgive me if that throws you. Besides, the order in which these things happened to me doesn’t mean anything for how healing can happen to you.
For myself, healing is a choice. I may not have had control over the various tramautic events in my life, but what happened after those events was and still is entirely up to me. It is true that there are immediate side effects of a tramautic event. For example, what if you were in a horrible car accident. That accident can leave your legs broken. It is going to take surgery to repair your legs, but then it is going to take physical therapy so that they walk again. The doctor can do everything to help you, but eventually you have to get off the bed and go through the grueling process of walking again.
Getting out of the bed…taking one step and then another….that is all ON YOU!
There came a point when my body, my emotion, my spirit and my mentality started to naturally heal themselves. You self preserve without controling it. It’s a wonder of being human. Just like your heart beats without you even trying. You can make that process easier or harder..but there’s a little bit that nature does on its own whether you like it or not. You are resilient that way.
And I noticed it. I had a few physical scars from my ex step father beating me and without even trying those scars started to vanish. Some..not all..but some of the hurt started to fade. My memories weren’t as bad as they had been. Every now and then I found I could sleep through the night. It was rare, but sometimes it did happen. And when I started to notice that my body, spirit and mind were in a fight to save myself… I FOUGHT BACK.
Yes. I willingly ripped every scar back open. I’d purposely replay horrible memories and nightmares over and over. I’d play songs that trigged me intentionally. I’d add fuel to my rage, anger, bitterness, and hurt and I’d wallow in it like it was a magic elixir.
Maybe that has never happened to you. Maybe you just don’t want to admit it. But I had at MANY times in my life, willingly decided to stay in my suffering rather than heal.
Sure I had left the stage of victim and I did not think the world owed me anything. But there was this in between stage between being a victim and moving on to survivor and thriver that I liked staying in. It was this half living/half dead but mostly dead place I chose to stay in. I liked that world. It was comfortable and familiar. I knew all the demons by name.
Now this doesn’t apply to everyone and I’m sure there are advocates more gracious than me who may not like what I’m saying…but there comes a point where you just have to grow the fuck up. I’m sure there is a pretty and more gracious way to say that. But the pretty way wasn’t what helped me at the time. I didn’t need a soothing lullaby to coax me into healing. I needed a 2 ton truck to hit me square in the chest and say, “Sheena, grow the fuck up and get over yourself!”
I’m speaking to those who WILLINGLY CHOOSE to stay hurt. I’m talking to those who pick the scab off, pretend that they don’t, but really enjoy that they do it.
I’m not talking to those who suffer and can’t figure it all out. I’m talking to the ones who know better. There are some of you because I was one of them. And sometimes I still do it. I know better than to get depressed about the death of James or Maura or my grandma..but I have days where I forget common sense, I forget myself, I mentally cut myself open and wallow in my own self pity party. And if I’m doing, someone else must be too. I refuse to believe I’m the only one.
Just admit it. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.
One step towards deciding to heal myself was that I started to see glimmers of what my life would be life if I kept at it. If I kept living a careless life, if I kept opening scar after scar…I saw this image of me broken, bloody and dead. I saw a tombstone where nothing interesting was written on it. I saw someone and no one knew her name. I saw myself dead and no one noticed. And I just wanted a more interesting story than that.
If I was going to die, it was going to be because of something that mattered and not because i was depressed. It wasn’t going to be because of the sins of my father. There are enough people dying because they are depressed, because they were abused, because they just couldn’t get a grip and their own self created demons choked the life out of them. I wanted something more interesting than that.
I didn’t want to die from alcholic poisioning. I didn’t want to die from binge eating or from not eating at all. I didn’t want to die from self mutilation. And I didn’t want to really spend the rest of my life locked away in some institution because I couldn’t get a grip on my life, my self or my mind.
I wanted more. And good god, I was so sick of crying for myself.
I once read the obituary of Todd Skinner and for some reason it showed me how crappy I was being. His story versus my story were completely different and I wanted to be more aligned with how he lived his life, full of passion and not full of depression and emotional turmoil.
So I got over myself and I started seeking ways to restore myself. I had to change my mind. Literally. I had to change what I was thinking about and how I was thinking about it. I’m talking a major paradigm shift.
I had to just leave stuff behind. Every where I went I was dragging all the luggage from my past. And it was slowing be down, holding me back and keeping my hands tied up from really receiving what life had to offer.
I had to leave christianity..not god… behind. You may not have to do it but if my life was going to have any meaning, it had to be left.
I had to change where I spent my time and who I was surrounded myself with. I had to change how my days were lived out. I had to change what I did, what I read and what I said. People fought against it. Some friends taunted me because I was no longer binge drinking. Friends made jokes because I decided to not be a siren. They didn’t think it was possible. People made light of the fact that I started to talk differently. And just as I let the baggage go and Christianity go, I let them go to.
And even though I wasn’t healed yet, even though I had only just started therapy, things started to shift in my world. I stopped ripping myself apart and started looking for ways to build myself up. If I was going to die, I wanted to die fully Sheena and not a broken little girl still crying because of her father’s sin.
Give yourself grace and stop victimizing yourself. Haven’t you been traumatized enough? I’ve learned that you do yourself an injustice by not being whole. So get over yourself and grow up.
The beginning of my changes started to show themselves in my daily blogging years ago
I hope the wells haven’t run dry in Gilead.
I hope we all do wise up.
I hope these mistakes are not a cycle of sin for my broken life.
I hope one day we are better and that we do beal.
And that forgiveness changes us
What I Don’t Want on my Epitaph
Excerpt: So I’m done.
You do or don’t do.
And in this case, I no longer do.
Changing is actually that simple.
Today’s Lesson in Sociology of Sheena
….while doing things I loved and that relaxed me…basically…I vowed things to myself. To stop clicking send like a dumbass. To start taking myself seriously and stop playing games. A whole host of things. And hopefully I will be a woman of my word and live by these convictions
Taxicab to 8 S. Michigan: $8
Jamba Juice while waiting for appointment: $4
New Co-Pay due to computer error: $12
Learning, Deciding and then Treating yourself Right: Priceless
On a side note, I just want to say that scars aren’t so bad. Emotional. Physical. Or Spiritual. I mean, physical scars mean that at one point your body was broken and then there was a healing process. So scars are wonderful. They remind you of what happened but also of the process of healing. If you have a scar, that’s good. It’s the open wounds that are festering with infections and bitterness and fear that you should be concerned with.
