I am captivated by the term ‘childhood’ traumas. It’s as if we think they are locked into a place in time and don’t infect impact encamp and inbreed with this moment, affecting the beliefs we hold, acting on the ways we respond, impeding our ability to love, increasing our willingness to hate. They are always right here, right now upsetting our proverbial apple carts, that is until we see them for what they are, but while in the grips of traumatic events, it is nearly impossible to see clearly.

Most of us will do anything possible, and attempt a few things that lie in the realm of impossibility, to avoid meeting, let alone greeting the terror filled moments from childhood, and yes, I use terror intentionally. As children, the monsters under the bed weren’t supposed to be real and they sure weren’t supposed to be the ones whose role was to love and guide us.

Once through the excruciatingly tight knot hole, something that many are never blessed to experience, why would you look back? Why would you intentionally revisit that hell?

You wouldn’t. No one would without a lot of coaxing and preparation. We were all wounded. None of us escaped unscathed. Life is nothing if not a world of walking wounded.

I didn’t seek out my traumas intentionally … but I did seek them out. Once I made it out, I remembered the standard mantra, just move on, but life had other ideas. It always does. If you don’t believe me just look at your life, at all the things you planned and wanted and what you actually did and where you ended up. It’s telling.  

Human’s plan. That seems to be a built-in default, even when so many plans fall apart.

Looking back at my personal terrors, I didn’t feel like a victim. It felt more like survival. The idea of leaving arose but getting out was always complicated, more so after the boys were born. You are so busy surviving that you don’t have the time to plan an escape. Maybe that’s the abuser’s intent. I’m not sure they have a plan other than to maintain control. I honestly don’t know. I just know how it seemed to me.

Eventually, I found myself in a position where leaving was possible. I don’t think I planned it, intending it to be that way. It was more like Life pulled me into a new version of myself, one where this character in the story could see a way out.

Why do some keep going back, abused to the point of death, while others get away? The only word I have for it is grace, but that’s not quite accurate. It’s more like that particular chapter in my book of life ran out of pages and fresh ink at the same time. 

At the time, it felt like something I did, but I know now that it was done through me, just as the abuse was done through him. Neither of us could have acted differently. With his abusive background and my naiveté, my unwillingness to see anything but the good in people, we were a match made in heaven or was that hell. Both are mental projections, so depending on who was speaking, the answer would vary.   

You would think that once it was done that would have been enough for a lifetime, but it wasn’t. There were still some inner threads resonating with sufficient energy to attract another adept at using manipulation to override anything not to his liking.

It’s amazing to me that I fell for it again … and yet, I am grateful I was given the opportunity to trust myself completely, the chance to see clearly and redefine what I was willing to accept as loving behaviors, the recourse to realize I could break free of a very sticky situation even though it meant walking away and causing another pain, actions taken In the name of love — love for all, myself finally included.

Life had given me the perfect experiences to prepare the way. Today’s tough times are tomorrow’s resilience. The little girl, the one trained to nurture and care for everyone but herself, the one whose desires didn’t matter, whose happiness was irrelevant as long as those around her got their way, that one, bit by bit, traumatic moment by traumatic moment, she was being reborn.

Loved by life – and we all are – loved in ways we can’t even imagine, life returning itself to harmony, loving itself into remembrance, pulling itself upward out of the darkness: the conceit that some matter and others do not.

We all matter. The whole of us matters. This is what we are remembering. Be kind. We are all trying to find our way out of the darkness.   

Like this, and want to read more? Check out my latest book, Actuality: infinity at play. It’s designed to repair the severed link between the splendor of our experience and the mystery of Actuality. https://amzn.to/3Rd4CTY

Image: Jonny Essex, The Little Girl Lost Collection