Back to Life: A True Story of Trauma Healing

You become what you believe you are worth.

*Trigger Warning for Sensitive Readers:

Please be advised and aware in advance this post includes a true story about suicidal ideation.

Knowing what you believe about your worth so you know what you are becoming might just be the difference between healing and hurting. Living or dying. Surviving or thriving.

At least, that's what I keep discovering on my life journey through healing and health.

It all started one day, years ago, when, as a young mother with 3 small children, I realized I was becoming what I hated.

I was becoming abusive to my own children in ways that had terrified and hurt me so deeply as a child. I was becoming controlling, emotionally unavailable, unpredictable, explosive, physically aggressive, terrifying and hurtful to my children. I was becoming an abuser.

No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how badly I wanted to be, and set out each day to be, the picture of the calm, patient, attentive, nurturing and loving parent, I'd painted in my head, I'd end up in the awful and opposite states I've already described above.

And I woke up one terrible morning, many years ago in the deepest, darkest most debilitating depression of my life with a twisted and terrible thought, taking shape in me:

If I am only here to cause the same pain to my children that I experienced as a child, then what is the point of life? My kids, my husband, the world, even, would be better off without me. I am not worthy of the air I breath. We'd all be better off if I were dead.

Suicidal thoughts like these should never be ignored. If you've never had them, I hope you never will. If you have had them and are getting help, stay in it. If you've had them recently, please do not wait another second to get help. Call or Text 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Hotline. Or click here for a list of crisis resources in Brevard County.

You are needed. And valuable beyond measure. Thoughts like these are not the true story. They may be telling you something true about your story. But it is not the truth of who you are.

These thoughts, with the help of my beautiful husband and now partner of 28 years, led me to reach out for help and I began a profoundly transformative healing journey I've now been on for over 20 years.

As much as I still grieve the thoughts of self hatred my younger self was experiencing at this time in my life, I now associate it with the healing that has and is still freeing me everyday from being beholden to those thoughts.  

This doesn’t mean I don’t still have really painful and difficult days and even seasons of life.  I still do.  It just means that the pain and the struggles don’t have the power to tell me who I am and rob me of my identity and life as they once did.   

And I realize how much this journey has informed my desire to share what I've learned in hopes it may prevent others from ending up in that dark place to begin with.  And also, if you do end up there, I hope my story will bring you a measure of comfort and hope.  That it might demystify healing for you and bring it into a more tangible light.  

Because healing trauma is not as abstract and complicated as you might think. Yes, the wounds are invisible and the pain, although excruciating, is abstract. But the effect it has on our health and life are tangible, indeed.  The same is true for healing.  

If I can impress one thing on the human race I've learned through my experience, it's this: a little understanding about trauma goes a long way when it comes to healing.  

For example, in my first life saving phone therapy sessions, my only job was to stay with myself by staying with the kind voice of my (trauma informed) therapist on the other end who began carefully building a space that felt safe enough for me to exist in without slipping into self hatred.

That voice and the genuine care, compassion and safety it provided for me began to put me back in touch with my value, my belonging, a sense that I was worthy of care.  That helped me understand more and more through each session how the abuse I'd suffered as a child had wounded me invisibly through a distorted message I'd received and then unconsciously believed, that I was not worth being cared for or loved.

The unresolved identity wound or unhealed emotional & psychological trauma I'd been living with for years had festered, distorted my sense of self, and disintegrated my identity into becoming what I believed I was worth- abuse. 

Abusing myself in the form of self criticism, ignoring my own needs, people pleasing, numbing through alcohol abuse, falling into uncontrollable rage and then trying to perfectly perform my way to redemption was me repeating the ways I had been abused. 

And the terrible truth about trauma that not one of us can escape from is this:

Abuse of self becomes an abuser of others if left unresolved, unhealed.   

 In his well known book, The Body Keeps The Score, one of the most longstanding and influential experts on trauma, Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk explains it like this,

“Trauma robs you of the feeling that you are in charge of yourself. The challenge of recovery is to reestablish ownership of your body and your mind—of your self. This means feeling free to know what you know and to feel what you feel without becoming overwhelmed, enraged, ashamed, or collapsed.

I will be the first to attest to how true this has been for me. And healing what I believed about my worth was the key to exactly that- "reestablishing ownership of my body and mind". It brought me back to life itself.

Among other things, healing started with a daily journal practice called Into Me I See (click for free download) given to me by my first therapist. It taught me to be with myself, let go of judging myself, accept myself exactly as myself and live in the present.

This practice was the simple beginning to learning to identify and value my needs. And then provide myself delighted care as I learned to take care of my own needs in the same measure I learned to value my children's needs and delight in caring for them.  As I healed my own child within, I began becoming the nurturing mother I'd always wanted so desperately to be.

My 3 children became my best teachers and getting to raise them alongside my husband, became the greatest gift and most complete joy of my life to date. They are my favorite humans on earth.

Seeing them grow from childhood to adulthood has been miraculous. The relationship I get to have with each of them is a miracle.  We are very much human, imperfect and working out lots of stuff just like everyone.  But getting to witness a near constant parallel between the degrees of respect, care, compassion, forgiveness, unconditional love and belonging I’ve been able to give my kids is equal if not greater to what I’m always learning to receive and give myself.    

This reminds me constantly that the miracle of healing is how changing the relationship we have with ourselves for the better, changes all our relationships for the better.  

Reintegrating a disintegrating self by learning to believe I was worthy of becoming who I wanted to be, not who my trauma told me I was. This is the power and the essence of what has healed and changed the trajectory of my life so completely.

When I look back at that day and see my younger self suffering so greatly, I now see her beyond the pain and abuse she endured. I admire her greatly. I respect her deeply. I love her fiercely. And I've become her truly.

Know what you believe about your worth so you know what you're becoming.

You are needed. Your value is inherent. Your worth is immeasurable.  

But, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I believe about you, only what you believe about yourself. 

Anyone can benefit from a trauma informed life. In fact, through these many difficult, yet full and rich years of being on this healing journey, I've come to believe our potential to thrive depends on it.

If you want to live fully and well, learning about trauma and allowing it to reveal your own need for healing might be a great next place to start.

I'm with you and for you always.  

With great care,

Your Cor Coach

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