When you’re ready, start rebuilding your beautiful life

Comments (4)

I’m all about healing, talking about your abuse, letting it be known, getting all the sympathy and compassion you need.  But when it’s time to start rebuilding your life, get on it.  There’s no set timeline for everybody, you need to heal and when you’re ready to move on, do it.  Don’t keep yourself down by being a victim any longer than you need to.  But don’t rush the healing process.

Let yourself heal

I spent many years in therapy, countless hours journaling about my abuse.  So much time spent crying and being angry because of the abuse I experienced, so much time spent mourning the loss of my childhood.  I knew I had to go through this as long as it needed to go before I moved on.  During this process I was number one, I gave myself everything I needed:  time, compassion, forgiveness.

Time to rediscover yourself

But when I was ready to live again, I went for it.  I rediscovered myself.  I journaled about what I loved to do, I journaled about how I wanted my life to be.  I had to journal because all the things I loved weren’t readily available to me.  I became so deep in depression and self-hatred that only journaling helped me tap deeper into my soul.  I discovered who I was and who I was meant to be.  I was done with the deep work.  I want to include the healing never ends, I’m still healing to this day, but I was over the shock that I was abused.  I learned enough about my abuse, and I had the skills in place to heal and live life.

Getting stuck being a victim

I was inspired to write this journal because I want to share with you that when I was ready to live life again, I really didn’t want to at first.  I became so used to getting sympathy from people and attention from my therapist that I started to like all the attention.  But I realized, I’m the only one who can make the decision to step out into the world again and live.  Eventually I did.  I said to myself, the old hurt Jamie is gone and the new Jamie is ready.

Reconnecting with life

I reconnected with friends, made new friends, I became invested in myself again.  I started wearing colorful clothes that I loved, fixing my hair, wearing makeup because I enjoyed it.  During the deep healing process, I was exhausted, I wore sweatshirts all the time and never fixed my hair.  I just didn’t care during that time.  Now I did care about myself.  It’s not about outside beauty, but just basic hygiene and wearing things that express the life in me.  Conversations with my friends were no longer all about my abuse and how my mom ruined my life.  I started to do this because in my head I told myself my mom stole enough of my life, she doesn’t deserve to take away this precious time with my friends, or this precious time with my boyfriend, or this precious time with myself.  I’m not going to waste it talking about her and what she did to me, I’m gonna talk about my life and things I’m excited about.  I stopped listening to her voice inside my head telling me to be afraid, telling me that I can’t make it, telling me that my healing is only temporary, telling me that the world is out to get me, making me insecure and self-conscious.  I was ready, I told my mom goodbye.  I’m done with your lies, your threats, your way of living.  I’ve discovered my own and I don’t need you to live.

Music in my life

Currently I am pursuing music.  I am writing some beautiful music and beautiful lyrics.  I have a beautiful life that I love.  I no longer waste time entertaining all the worries in my head, entertaining all the critiques my mom’s voice in my head tells me.  You see, the abuse you experienced, all the horrible things that were said start to become a tape recorder in your head that plays over and over whenever a situation triggers it.  It told me “Be afraid of this, you can’t do it, you are bad…”  You see you begin to internalize it.  What I do now is just ignore that tape recorder of my mom’s voice.  It had nothing based on reality, but all based on the need to destroy the life around her.  I was just an innocent bystander all the insults had nothing to do with me, there was nothing wrong with me.  I just ignore it now because I know better.  Her self-defeating thoughts are getting weaker and weaker.

Disclaimer

To be honest though, my life is not perfect.  Once in a while I can have a really bad day.  Or once in a while I’m too weak to combat the thoughts.  But I let myself start over again whenever it happens.  I’m not hard on myself because it took 18 years of abuse to ruin my life, it’s gonna take some time to rebuild that life, I knew I had to be realistic about that.  But I’ve come a long way and that’s what I keep on focusing on.

Moving on

The abuse is not part of my life anymore, my mom has no control over me.  I’m living my life and creating beautiful music. And it’s here to stay, it’s just who I am, it’s who I’ve always been. =)

---