I wanted to acknowledge, and apologise for, the fact that it takes longer after each blog for me to post another.
In all honesty this is because I didn’t anticipate how writing this blog would make me feel. I thought I was over it all and moving forward. To a certain extent, that is true. But it’s not the whole story.
Writing about my childhood was easy, it wasn’t hard to take a different perspective and find the good in all that happened because it’s like it was a different life. It was so long ago and because it doesn’t affect me day-to-day, I genuinely have managed to move forward and be grateful for the good.
My teen years were similar but harder.
By the time I got to my late teens – Magaluf – I was confident, almost cocky about my blog not causing me any pain. I felt on top of the world because I was proving that nothing could phase me.
Then, I wrote about Magaluf and that world I was on top of COLLAPSED. That posts effect on me was monumental. It made me feel like I had stood naked in a room of everyone who read my post or would ever read my post and described what had happened.
Since, I’ve been having a lot of bad days but a few good. I am writing about them in the hopes that owning the feelings will allow me to move forward with them. And then, I hope, from them. And of course, I am hoping that someone may understand and feel them too and then neither of us will have to feel so alone.
A few days after I wrote the post about the attack, I was scrolling through Facebook for photos of that time (to use in my next blog) and scrolled right into a photo of that old housemate. It felt like being that young, vulnerable girl all over again. For a few days, I am ashamed to say, I kept looking at that picture and hoping for answers or to at least see a sign in his face of what he was capable of.
I spoke to friends about this and was encouraged to stop looking, which I managed to do.
Then the anger started, I have been getting moments, sometimes hours at a time where there is so much anger flowing through my body that it hurts. All I want to do at those times is lash out but I know that I can’t.
That triggers the feeling of powerlessness for me, the fear that comes with that and the shame that comes with that.
Looking in the mirror at my own face has been a struggle – I feel like I don’t recognise myself right now.
I don’t really have the answers, or the ‘goods’ to share right now but here are a few things I’ve been doing to bring myself back;
- I’ve been forcing myself to look in the mirror, have photos taken of me. In the future when I look back to getting past this, I want to remember how I looked at the time.
- I’ve been getting myself out even when I am terrified of being there. I don’t want my life to pass me by.
- I’ve been opening up to my boyfriend and my friends as much as I can and trying to take their wise advise.
- I’ve been telling myself all of the things I would tell a friend in this situation. One day I will believe it.
I look forward to one day coming in here and writing about how I got through this and picking out the good in the situation.
But, for now, I am going to keep writing my story so that I don’t get stuck in one chapter.
Self Preservation to Self Love 
Hi there, you won’t know me but we used to work for the same company and the reason I came across your blog was because a mutual friend had liked the page and I enjoy reading blogs so had a look. I think you are a superb writer and you have a very courageous and philosophical way of viewing the world. I think what you are writing will indeed help others to feel less alone, and hopefully writing down what you have gone through will continue to show you how much strength it has taken to get through these difficult times in your life. What had struck me is the feeling of vulnerability in writing and allowing others to witness in some way these parts of your life story, I suppose my thought is that it could feel quite isolating in some ways sending your thoughts out there without knowing where they are going or who is reading them when you’re making sense of them yourself. It sounds good that you’re opening up more to those dear to you and perhaps doing this has enabled this process to continue. I hope that doing this is helpful to you and that you are able to feel at peace within yourself again, I will say about revisiting trauma is that it’s imperative that you take even better care of yourself and do what you need to do to heal, whatever that may be. In other words you don’t need to apologise for not
Writing quickly, these words will have been incredibly difficult to write and you owe it to yourself only to take this at a pace that suits you. Take great care of yourself and I wish you all the best x
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Thank you, Tracy xx
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