tell me a story. . . .

For almost 6 years now I have walked into my place of healing and have opened up about the story of my past that laid the foundation to my healing.

Telling my story in bits and pieces over these past several years has been both hard, yet rewarding – painful yet relieving to let go of something that I held for so long.

I show up 4 days a week in therapy (with some days being longer) to untie the bind that held me captive for so long. I not only show up in therapy, but I write, I journal, I connect, and I fight every inch through my healing.

I am vulnerable to my truth, and I am open and raw to all my fears. I tell my story in bits and pieces, thread by thread, moment by moment – all while accepting trust, connection, support and love.

I have showed big tears and I have been with big anger. I have laughed and I have sat in confusion. I have numbed out and I have also felt. I have been through every bit of my emotions – except allowing myself compassion for my own pain.

Today in session while sitting with my therapist, I put my head on his shoulder and I said to him “tell me the story of my past, tell me about the hurt and the pain I went through, tell me my story“.

My therapist immediately took my hand and began to tell me the story of my past; the story I shared for the past 6 years; The story we still continue to work through.

Sitting there today listening to my story was so hard to hear as he described this beautiful girl who didn’t deserve the pain she went through.

Tears were filling up my eyes and flowing down my cheek onto my therapist shoulder. My eyes were closed putting a picture to the words he was speaking, and there I was, hearing my story – my story that someone else knows.

I didn’t have to speak it, I didn’t have to go through the pain of talking it out.. someone else was telling the story and all I had to do was listen and accept and find compassion for myself.

It was truly hard to hear someone else talk about what I went through as a child, what I went through as a teen, and what I went through as a young adult. It was so painful to hear him describe the abuse and how sad it was to live my life in fear, numbing myself to the world, feeling unloved and unaccepted.

It was painful to hear how alone I was, how rejected I was, how abandoned I was. Every hit, every belt to the daily sexual abuse – the daily fears of rocking back and forth alone in my closet.

My heart sank, but it was something I needed to hear.

My therapist said in the middle of the story that his heart was so broken for the young child who endured so much pain and so heart broken for the person I am today having gone through that – and for the first time ever, I allowed someone to be sad for me without guilt – no guilt!

My therapist didn’t miss one thing, he knew every painful moment, every hit, every rejection, every moment that hurt me the most. He knew when it happened, by who, what my fears and emotions were, and he even knew my inner secrets that I kept deep inside as a child.

I took a deep breath and thought about the child I was and how much she wanted someone to know what was going on back then, how much she wanted to not be alone in this pain, and today she wasn’t alone – her story was being said by someone else.

For an hour I sat with my head on my therapist shoulder and allowed myself to be vulnerable to my own story; to allow myself tears for her the child and for me the adult.

I think it made me realize just how horrible and horrific it was, just how SAD it was, and just how painful it was, but also how healing it was to hear my story from the outside in not from the inside out.

It made me love the child within more. It made me have compassion for myself a little more, a little more caring, a little more love for myself, and a little more gentleness with myself.

I think when we hold our pain and hold our story inside we try and minimize how bad it was because we don’t want to believe such a horrible thing could happen to us. We know the story, but we don’t know how bad. We know the pain inside, but we don’t know how bad the pain is inside. When we hold something so close to us, sometimes it’s hard to get a perspective on how BIG it really is.

I didn’t realize until today just how BAD the abuse was that I went through; how much I have a right to feel the way that I do. It was heartbreaking, but it was a moving moment for me in my healing.

There is this quote that comes to mind  – “you can’t heal what you don’t face”

I think I believe that more today than I ever have. Listening to my story from my therapist truly put my life in perspective, and although it was painful to hear, I needed to hear it.

I think this opens me up to a new part of my journey, a new kind of healing, and a new kind of trust in therapy.

We have been working so hard this year through something that hurt me that brought a huge part of my past to the surface, and although I am reminded that what happened this year wasn’t about me – wasn’t my fault,  we are still working hard on why it hurt and what it brought to the surface, and how to heal that pain from my past.

Today hearing my story from my therapist may be the very thing I needed – it hurt and I feel raw, but it feels good and healing, and I am blessed.