OK, so I know that you are just trying to get some insight. I know that you just want to hear it from someone that is still alive and semi-thriving. I also know that you are not intentionally trying to piss me off. However, I seriously cannot stand when someone asks me "How did you survive?"
I am not trying to be mean, or unpleasant, but please think about this question before you ask it. I DID not survive. I AM STILL SURVIVING! The better question to ask someone that has been through trauma is "How ARE you surviving?"
It is an every day thing. It never goes away. My trauma surrounds me, as it does with most people. We fight with everything in us to keep our heads up, to wake up and face each and every day, and sometimes, just to find the will to keep breathing. It's not in the past and using past tense language can be hurtful. It really does make me feel like they are looking at me with the idea that I have gotten past it. That I have moved on and I am living some blissful, trauma-free life.
I assure you, I am not. And I do not believe that any of us are.
We can learn skills that keep us afloat. We can adapt to our surroundings. We can even appear to be on the top of our game. Living life to the fullest and kicking traumas ass. But, make no mistake, we feel it every day. We continue to survive it every day.
There isn't a day that I wake up and just forget that I was abused. There isn't a relationship that is doesn't affect. There isn't a decision I make that is free of it's influence. There is not one single part of my life that is "trauma-free".
Don't get me wrong. I truly appreciate their interest in my life. I honestly value when people show compassion for others by asking them things like this. I just wish that they would think about how those words affect us.
How did I survive, you ask?
I didn't, but I became someone that could. Someone that is still in the process of surviving.
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