Reading books about trauma lately, I totally relate to how trauma survivors (who haven’t learned to regulate and heal) stay in survival mode. Survival mode (for me anyway) is linked to comfort zone, what feels safe and familiar and getting ‘through’ life rather than getting ‘from’ life. There’s a big difference in getting through life and getting from life. Even when familiar isn’t necessarily safe or satisfying, you stay in that place. And living day to day like this, you don’t have a sense of, or, find it difficult to look to the future (not with a glass ball or anything), but in the sense of knowing what you want and how to shape that future; you’re too focussed on how to get through life, on how to get through the days, weeks and months. So ‘goal’ setting (for want of a better word) or turning dreams large or small, into reality, becomes an onerous task that you can’t seem to ‘access’, shrouded with fogginess. Knowing what you want in life becomes inaccessible because you actually don’t know what you want when you’re living from that place of pure survival. And if, like me you have childhood trauma, growing up poor and victimised, with a wounded inner child, the ability to have fun for the sake of it and be spontaneous has long vanished into the fragments of who you are that was split off from you, exiled and abandoned into the wilderness never to return.
I have lived my life in that survival mode for a long time and totally understand it. I have put my survival needs first and me second. It’s a modus operandi that feels so familiar like a comfy pair of old slippers and thriving feels alien and jagged, even though I know that I might enjoy it. Thriving has a kind of paralysis to it. Many un-traumatised people have a sense of what they want from life. Just simple things like planning a weekend away or an impromptu getaway, booking tickets to a show, planning a trip, creating a new hobby, visiting a new place for the day, trying a new sport or going to a class to try something you’ve never done before, indulging in hobbies and creativity – normal everyday things that most people live for becomes a difficult task and you end up talking yourself out of it and finding something else to do and staying put. As a trauma survivor, I’ve lived for the sake of getting through the days and it’s always been about finding ways to make money aka, survival, living for tomorrow; sitting in the waiting room of my life for that tomorrow never to come with a gloomy cloud that seemed to follow me. Sadness and dullness became the norm. Happiness and fun was a thing for others that was rationed out to me.
From around aged 16 onwards into my mid-30’s, I never thrived at all. I used to draw and paint a lot when I was at school and I was an amazing writer; having the structure of school helped me to continue with those things which was a pure extension of me and made me feel like me. But I don’t remember continuing any of that after age 16 and no one ever encouraged me to shape my life. My mum was also a child of trauma and endured the trauma that we suffered together as mother and daughter. The structure for me to continue my artistic life wasn’t there. If I had pursued the arts and my innate talent, I think it probably would have aided greatly in my healing; but back then, I didn’t see how the arts would aid my survival. So my decisions from 16 onwards were fully fuelled by survival, the further education was fuelled by survival, and from aged 18 that’s when I really went off piste, making very poor decisions, selling myself short with my work life and personal life, getting involved in all the wrong things and with all the wrong people. I was totally and utterly lost. By then anyway, the wild fires of the angst and rage that consumed me had raged their way through me and burnt the real me to ashes. I was floating aimlessly through life like an empty plastic bag just ending up blown around in different in places: not knowing what I want to experience, where I want to go, where I want to be, where I want to live, who I want to be around, and not having any sense at all as to what I want from my life. I was looking for belonging, from within and without. I was never deliberate about my life. But with a black-hole vortex of confusion, loneliness, sadness, grief, rage, bitterness and disconnectedness within me sucking the life out of me, along with the shards of my shattered heart, this inner devastation and chaos definitely manifested itself in my outer world as a big, fat mess racking up debts along the way and a trail of failure for myself in terms of work and relationships. I am crying the tears for her whilst I write this, for the wounded child and teen who abandoned and exiled herself into the wilderness. Perhaps shedding these tears for her now will help to release and heal her?
Sure there are pockets in my life when I have tried to thrive – for instance in my mid-30’s when I was finally feeling somewhat settled and making good money as a workaholic (although I had racked up about £35k of debt by the time I was 30) it dawned on me that I hadn’t ‘lived’ (which is actually that I hadn’t learned to thrive). So I began to do ‘normal’ things than just be a workaholic: book holidays, go out more, eat out at nice places, meet new people and got involved with a fair-weather friend crowd that made me feel like I was living, even though there was a distinct disjointed and disconnected feeling underlying it all. I lacked any real close friends. Around 2011 I started learning flamenco which lasted on and off for 3 years, but looking back, I still felt disconnected from my life even though it was something I was enamoured with and always wanted to try. It was like I was just going through the motions but not all there. That’s dissociation for you. Instead of looking forward to my weekly classes, it became a survival competitive pit where the inner child took over wanting to be the best and pouting when I got things wrong. Trips to the gym felt like I was walking through treacle ( I do enjoy exercise by the way but the gym felt like I was just ticking a box); regularly I would escape there and cry on the cross trainer or rowing machine every time I would meet a new guy thinking he was ‘the one’ only to realise a few short months later he’s a complete dick and all my hopes of finding a stable relationship were dashed. And there was an unspoken under-current of competitive, narcissistic jealously with the fair-weather friend crowd, masked by fake-it friendly drinks and meet ups. It feels like I was looking for me in all these places.
But even though I dipped my toe into trying to thrive, during my 30’s, I never allowed myself to indulge in my artistic side. The only window I recall when I allowed myself to free-float in being me was around 2012; I started a blog for nothing else than a bit of fun and release. I chronicled my dating escapades and dieting and it was unwittingly a bit “sex and the city” without the sex, and effortlessly funny. I’d pull over whilst I was on the road and just blog about my day or describe a particular awkward date. I felt alive writing that blog. I shared on social media and people loved reading it. Someone once commented how much she enjoyed reading it, how funny it was and that I should become a writer. But….(a BIG BUT and I cannot lie lol) I let the narcs surrounding me shut me down. The environment where I worked was a rancid cesspit of jealous, bitchy and back-biting, swamp creatures snapping at my heels. “How dare I do such extra-curricular work!!”, “who the hell does she think she is?” “she just uses us to make money so she can go off and do other things”, said the cesspit swamp-creatures. Word got around to me. So like a fool I shut it down rather than protecting it fiercely like it was my baby and keeping it private. It’s akin to full on narc disapproving of my efforts to make a living and bullying me enough so I shut it down (if you’ve read that blog). Life tends to repeat itself.
Protecting your creativity is protecting your inner child. It IS your free-flowing, fun loving child that has come out to play. I believe it’s one and the same thing. I really regret not continuing with that blog…
But the learning to thrive didn’t last (I was eventually ousted from that career by the cesspit swamp creatures’ gossip and fake claims which no doubt gave them a brief moment of triumph), and knowing I couldn’t win a legal battle, I jumped and fell head-first back into survival mode, only this time tail spinning into the abyss of a breakdown and sinking into the quick sand of a deep depression. That was a decade ago….and here I am now still learning what it means to thrive and undoing a life time of survival….I regret not learning to thrive a lot sooner….
If baring my soul to you (and the world) has moved or touched a part of you in any way, then your support would be very welcome. To help me on this healing journey, perhaps you’d like to buy me a coffee (although mines a tea) via the link below:
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