My Strength Is Manufactured, I Still Feel Pain

Often i read about strength in character and what that means.

In many ways, and to those around me, I am strong. Those select few who

know my past and see that I have survived and lead a ‘normal’ life, believe I am

strong simply because I continue to be.

And perhaps they are right in some way. But where they are wrong, is the

assumption that any strength they perceive makes me hardened to pain. In fact

quite the opposite, I feel quite acutely.

The difference between them and I is the initial reactions. I was in a lot of pain

as a child. The sexual abuse was so complicated and confusing that I simply locked

away any feelings towards it so that I could continue to function each day. The

emotional and physical abuse made me rage and scream...alone, locked in my room

with no one to comfort me.

I learned that my emotions, if I showed them, would not be recognised and certainly not comforted. If you were in pain you did it quietly. What good did shouting do anyway?

If anything when I raged my mother took pleasure in the reaction, if I cried about the sexual abuse in my later years people grimaced and looked uncomfortable. So I learned to school my emotions for the benefits of others, and indeed to protect myself from further vulnerability.

But do I feel...

I still feel guilty that I went on a holiday with friends and forgot to tell my mum I

loved her every night like she asked. I was 8.

I still feel shame that i wet myself in a music lesson because the sexual abuse

was giving me UTI's and I was too scared to ask to go the bathroom again. I was

9.

I still feel guilty that when my dad visited me in the hospital I hid and said I

didn’t want to see him. I was 8.

I still feel guilty that be revealing my abuse my brother lost his father. I was

10.

I still feel everything.

My memory is fractured, but the negative emotions of shame, guilt and

sadness stick by me like my shadow. Never letting me move forward.

The shame, guilt and fear that comes with the abuse means I feel things so

acutely I can’t think or sleep. They follow me for years and perhaps for my

lifetime.

I don’t breakdown and cry. At least not in front of many people. In the

moments I’m stoic and strong and maybe I’ll even say something smart. But

inside I am reeling.

You don’t see tears and so you think I am strong. You think I can take the

blows. If I shed tears for all my pain the riverbanks would burst. If I had not

learned to school my emotions... in reality I don’t think I would be here now. The

pure rawness of my nature would be unbearable for anyone to be around and the

isolation and loneliness would have allowed me to take my own life.

You see strong people and think they can take it. But actually they’ve taken

enough, They’ve shouldered enough weight and what you don’t see is that their

strength hides their true pain. I cry alone. I survive alone.

True strength comes from true pain.

#childabuse #emotionalabuse #childhoodtrauma #mentalhealth #csa #survivortough