Writing about Trauma

Lately I have been thinking about the most emotional parts of my past. The things that still leave a pit in my stomach. The things that I have been trying to push below the surface.

Two years ago, I was so shaken by something that I could hardly get through the day without feeling upset about it. I knew I was about to lose someone. I had no idea how to process what was between us, especially because it had been hidden in my soul for so long.

I blamed myself for everything. Especially in the beginning. The night this came out, I remember lying on my bed, trying to sleep. My skin burned like I was in a tub of acid.

I think I was burdensome to many friends and family members at this time. It felt like I constantly had to talk to someone. Silence felt unnatural. I got to the point where I would record my own voice on my phone several times a day just to keep talking.

I knew what was coming. When the relationship ended I believed I had lost a part of my soul.

Soon after, on New Year's Eve at my sister's house, everything started to change. I started to feel rising energy when I realized the tragedy that had come between me and the person I might have married was the missing link in Cutting Free. When I told my sister I had just made a resolution, she asked, "Is it finishing your book?"

She was right.

Writing about the pain and trauma of my past was the best way I got through this. I would listen to songs that reminded me of this person I lost and let the words and tears come. I felt pushed to write about all the things that were once too painful to even acknowledge.

I had other ways to cope, but none were as powerful as the writing. The pain began to take a new form. It suddenly had meaning.

Today . . .

I realized as I was thinking about that time that the pain in my stomach is no longer there. I never imagined that I would fully get past this. I had once even pleaded with God to let me go back and change this, but of course the answer was, "It doesn't work that way." So I had resigned myself to carrying a ghost.

Recently I had a conversation about it and noticed I didn't feel guilty. It seemed like a major step. But today, I realized the pain in my stomach was gone. The regret, the blame, the feeling that I have ruined my life, was not there anymore. This story will help so many people that even though it caused incredible pain, it has found a place of rest.

I have reached the point that if I could go back in time, I would leave things as they were.