I am close to a breakthrough. I can feel it brewing. Things are hard right now. I say that nearly every entry. Please know how hard I am working on this Post Traumatic Growth. Things feel hard in a different way. I feel many parts of myself changing and morphing. I want to say ‘getting weaker’ but that isn’t true. My parts of myself doing the protecting are getting thinner in certain ways. I am still in my suicidal ideation haze, yes. It feels different though. Less heavy. It also feel like there is more of it. As though somehow my consciousness has expanded and the weight, though the same, feels lighter, thinner. It’s these cracks I am working towards. That’s how the love gets in.

Today, after a hectic day of fighting within myself, I sat down to finally start a draft for a letter I intend to send to a friend who lost her mother recently. My friend’s Mum died on the same day Grandma died. We are connected yet again by the dates in the calendar year. I realised, only today in this writing session, my resistance to send them the letter is due to my unresolved grief. It is mixed in with my resistance to giving love. The death of a loved one, one’s maternal figure, is a reason to get over yourself and just try.

So I took this lesson and decided to sign into the Incest Support Group meeting. I was 15 minutes late but that doesn’t matter. Showing up matters. Getting to the meeting matters. My presence matters. It is only my second time at this type of meeting. It is a bizarre experience. To feel so seen and heard by people who have gone through something similar to me. Yet my body response was one of fear, panic. I had just read earlier in the day about Toxic Shame. There is a difference between shame you feel in a normal setting, like telling a bad joke that does not land on your audience. You take a mental note to not tell that type of joke in this company again. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad joke, just wrong audience type thing. Toxic shame is debilitating. I deal with it so many days of the year. You can’t think straight, can’t function right. This will be the next chapter I read about, tomorrow.

The other thing I spoke about was being in the haze of my suicidal ideation. This is an emotional flashback. Maybe reading about this is why it feels different. Why it shapeshifted in me. I spoke about my armour of denial. How it took a long time for me to realise these things happened to me. In addition to that, my mind, body, soul, being deemed the only method possible for my survival was to delete all my memories. I have to be gentle with myself. I have to do all the things I wished for, longed for as a child. I have to give those to the Little Me’s still stuck within me. There is nothing I won’t do to help myself and to help my Little Me’s.

I spoke twice in the session. I think it went well. My Toxic Shame on overdrive during the session. After the session, I was still feeling everywhere, all at once. I checked back in and realised I needed to move my body. To help with my mind-body reconnection. I did yoga again. This is unheard of. I usually resist these good things for myself, even though it seems like the logical answer. I simply cannot get my mind to accept that my body needs help. Except today, after this session, I did that. I actually enjoyed it too.

After yoga, I felt amazing. Truly. I was skipping away from the session. I went out and shared what happened, how it impacted me, the things I learned. Unimaginable things happened to me as a kid, and I was sitting in my office alone, surrounded by people’s voices who have suffered in the same ways I have. We are all trying to make sense of it. I want to work the steps of recovery. I want to be an example. I want to show people ‘we do recover’.

After all of this, I had two memories come back to me. The first was jazz dance class. I could see the windows in the dance class, I could see the beams that lined the walls, I could see the mirrors. I couldn’t see the other girls faces, but I saw their bodies. Probably because I didn’t and still don’t look anyone in the eyes. I could hear her voice, or I could hear the instructions for the dance moves. Skip ball change, Pas De Bourree, Skip ball change, step, hop! I remember feeling so good in my body doing that. The next memory was being in Drama class. Also pre-teen. We were in a meditation exercise before we got into the class. We were asked how we felt during the exercise. Were we light and airy or heavy? I cheated, not knowing the answer, and just guessed blindly. Heavy was the answer I didn’t give. I got called out. My friend got it right. It made me laugh remembering, not the shame I felt of getting something wrong back then.

I went outside for a Mapacho after and unexpectedly this deep sadness erupted from my chest. I told it ‘I love you. I want all of you.’ which made me cry harder. I wanted to be inside in the safety of my home. The tears kinda stopped when I moved. Buried again. I went for a hot shower and they didn’t come any more.

Right now it’s late and I want to be in bed and yet I am also resisting sleep. I want to make better time for this connection with self and the stories that burn inside of me. I want to do things differently. I want to remember. I want to cry. I want to feel. I want to be free.

I am so close to a breakthrough. Gotta breakdown to breakthrough. In my case, anyway.

The strength of a turning tide. I am ready for you.

Lots of love,

Kate