Burn Journal Addiction? To These Parts, YES!

For the last couple days, I’ve laid down at night silently ecstatic about the burn journal. I felt like all negativity was just going to be splattered onto these pages. I was going to learn, grow, and become more positive. FINALLY! With everything going on in the world, I need that.

Some people might disagree, or not do it with me, and that’s okay…. then again, is it?! Disagree, okay yeah fine. But not join in! I want everyone in the world to do this with me. Not because I am sharing it, or want followers – I mean I sheepishly admit that’d be nice too – but the main reason I want people to join is because of this:

I talk to people every day who have been through something. They have seen dark DARK days. Sometimes, I am shocked that someone endured such horror and I had no idea. Other times, I am not surprised at all, because the weight can almost physically be seen. Every single one of these people deserve a moment to themselves, however long they choose, to express their pain in a positive way. I hope those people do for themselves this one thing!

Today’s prompt – Draw Your Most Unpleasant Emotion – took me on a JOURNEEYY. At first, I started using black watercolor because black is the duh-life-sucks-color. I then chose pink, because pink is black’s archenemy. Pink gives space for true emotion. It also resembles the heart well. During my therapy, I often focused on a tightness in my chest. I held pain there. So, I began to draw a heart. Not the superficial kind. A true muscle. But then, the image in front of me changed. I saw a profile of a woman unravel. Where the woman was looking was toward a dark expanse I drew a second before. The woman’s future struggled to see anything but rain. So I drew rain. Three red stripes then spread upon the page like blood. I worried about this, hoping death wouldn’t catch her quite yet. I stepped back for a moment and in contrast, the rain didn’t look so bad anymore. I changed brushes to add different effects to the canvas. Then, it was as if inside of me, a silent explosion occurred. It destroyed everything, leaving me with a single feeling of solitude. I felt alone.

Loneliness has always been my most unpleasant emotion. It may always be. But today, I drew it in a way where I felt companionship with the drawing. I felt validated by it. That feeling didn’t come easy, but it came.

Well that felt good. That’s honestly all I have to say. That felt amazing. Just go do it. You’ll know what I mean.

When I was really little I recall standing in a circle of family members. I stated that my superpower would be to be stretchy because I always forget to turn off the light before getting into bed. So I get all comfortable and perfectly ready to doze off then BAM! Lights still on. Ugh. I hate it. It’d be so nice to just be able to do an extra stretch and dink! Lights off. Well, in a later conversation, I was named lazy because out of all the super powers in the world, I would choose to be stretchy so I didn’t have to get up out of bed. I have held onto this, shocked at the assumption, but seeing the logic and therefore claiming the title of “lazy”. As I wrote this out, memories from my younger self flooded back. The reason I wanted that super power is because I had been anything but lazy all day long.

Ok, now for the thing I don’t want to tell anyone, but I so want to write out. I don’t want to share it because i know it won’t come out perfectly. I know it’ll be missing words and I just don’t have time to make it perfect. Mah. Here goes: It pisses me off when I feel lazy in my marriage. Have you ever had those times when you are so dead tired and you ask your spouse to do something for you only to find out he is dead tired too, but because he loves you, he does it anyway. So in my marriage this happens. some might say it happens a lot. This is the kind of scenario where I feel so judged. so tired. so anxious. and so …dare I say it. LAZY.

Here’s the deal though. I am not a lazy person. Taking breaks, knowing limits, asking for help, being tired, all that. It doesn’t mean you are lazy. It means you are human. If people judge you for that, well. They are misjudging you. So don’t get your panties in a wad. Yes. I am yelling at myself right now. I just wish people could see the effort we all do every day. Because if we did, I think we would be really stretched to find more than a few souls that had no heart, put in no effort, or had no good to ’em. We just need to give each other, and ourselves a break. Therefore, today. I. AM. NOT. LAZY. Instead, I am patting myself on my bearing-burdens-back and standing taller than freakin’ ever.

1. Perpetrator
2. Perpetrator
3. Perpetrator

Betrayal, abandonment, & manipulation were the things that turned my heart into a glob of dried up glue. No heart wants to be dried up glue! It looks like a nasty booger! A heart is supposed to pump strong, look like a powerful, life-providing muscle. But after my trauma it froze. It globbed up. I know that’s not a word, but that’s what it did.

How the heck do you unglob a heart from emotional trauma?

Getting serious, here’s how I did it.

Step 1: Grapple with the concept of Forgiveness:

When I forgave my perpetrator, it took longer than I would’ve liked. But it wouldn’t have even started if I didn’t straighten out some facts about forgiveness:

Truths I found:
Forgiveness works better and faster with God than without him.
Forgiveness does not require you to be dismissive toward your pain.
Forgiveness does not require a lack of healthy, definitive boundaries.
Making amends does not always require the offender’s presence or participation
Saying you forgive someone does not make it so – forgiveness, first, requires healing.

Step 2: Find an effective way to heal from Trauma (MUST READ):

I remember thinking therapy wasn’t the right option. I had talked to multiple therapists. I was misdiagnosed. After they would tell me what they thought was going on, it didn’t feel right. The things that they had me do barely seemed to scratch the surface of my needs. This wasn’t social anxiety. I was afraid of something specific. I often felt like something had happened to me, but I couldn’t remember it. I sat across from therapists that looked as confused as I felt. It was like they knew as well that there was something more. I even tried group therapy. That was more entertaining than anything. Not because of other people’s struggles, but because we would get together and be emotional about our lives. We would talk out the stupid problems to avoid touching on the deeper ones. Then occasionally we would touch on something deep and we would cry. We’d cry together. Though it was great to bond with people emotionally, it didn’t feel like what I needed. So I quit therapy all together. I thought for a long time that therapy wasn’t for me. That was until the flashbacks began. As I started reliving some of the things I had been through, I reached out to one of my old therapists. She talked with her supervisor and they suggested EMDR therapy. They told me I needed a trauma specialist. Finding a specialist for my exact struggle was EVERYTHING! Hopefully the capital letters emphasize it enough, because I am not kidding. That one change made therapy everything I needed.

Step 3: Set aside time at home for additional therapy

The best thing I did to work toward forgiveness is commit myself to my healing process. Once I started trauma therapy, it was crucial to do therapy at home as well. I took as much time as each day permitted (at least 20 minutes each day) to work on therapy. This ranged anywhere from processing more of my trauma to taking a hot bath to relax. My therapist gave me great ideas as to how to slow down my body, ground myself, and teach my brain to let my body feel controlled emotion again. This was such intense work, some days I just took a nap. Throughout this time of my healing, I slept a ton. I cried enough tears to compensate for years of unknowingly carrying pain. I trusted my therapist. I promised myself I’d strive to be 100% honest even when the truth seemed impossible to face. I chose to never face the hardest parts alone (either my husband or my therapist were near). I told myself I wanted to get better. I was willing to do anything to feel normal again. This therapy work, alongside many prayers, is the main reason I am here, fully here, today.

Step 4: Let Forgiveness in, but don’t rush it

Once Deep healing is felt & NOT A SECOND BEFORE, forgiveness becomes doable.

There were days where I just wanted to stop being angry at him. I wanted to just move on. I wanted to forget all this ever happened. I remember days where I knew with everything in me that he would never be forgiven by me. Sadly, since those feelings were present, I was in no place to forgive.

There is no shame in putting energy toward healing from wounds, rather than wasting energy trying to forgiving offenses before they’re even clearly understood.

I needed to heal first. So many people tried to urge me to move on faster, forget the bad and focus on the good, stop living in your past. Those sayings have their place, but their place is not within the walls of PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is something no friend advice can fix. I needed techniques, professional guidance & support, and time. As I forgot about trying to forgive and instead, let myself heal, forgiveness followed naturally.

God gave me the strength to endure every difficult thing I’ve been through. He also gave me the strength and ability to heal from all of it.