mountain

Ever climb that sort of hill where you keep thinking you see the top, but when you “get there,” you find out there's still more to climb? It can feel like you're making no progress at all, unless you turn around. Suddenly you realize how far you've come from your starting point.

Or maybe it's a full-on mountain, and you mark your progress by changes in the terrain. You get above the treeline. You start to feel the chill in the air. The obstacles along your path aren't tangled roots any more, but bare boulders.

This is how healing from abuse has been for me.

Step by step, I navigated my way out of the abuse.

Then I went through a period of high activation, feeling almost continually triggered, jumping at every contact like it was a red-alert threat.

Gradually I began having more experiences of noticing that I wasn't in a reactive state. I started to see instances where I got triggered, but came out of it faster. Then faster still.

The day came when that triggering dynamic happened, but I didn't react at all until it was past… and then later, I melted down hard. But another day came when I didn't react, and I didn't have a post-trigger blowout either. I held myself through the day, gave myself the supports I needed, and just…never went into survival mode.

One of our more common thought distortions is absolute thinking. I'm this, or I'm that. I'm in survival, or I'm out of it and done for good.

Life tends to be more nuanced. So often, we learn that what we thought would be a linear trail is a spiral. Still climbing, but circling back around to the same side of the mountain--from a new perspective.

I'm navigating a situation right now that's kicking up more frequent trigger responses for me. There was a time when I would have been triggered about being triggered, you know? Questioning all my progress, kind of blowing it all up in my head. Becoming more sensitive to every other trigger that presents itself. Making it mean something about me. And trying to fix it all somehow.

Mountains aren't for fixing.

Everybody who promised a “fix,” a sudden radical transformation, some kind of bypass to instant healing without doing this moment to moment work of being present for myself, turned out to be taking cruel advantage of people desperate for real help.

I know I have made so much progress, because now I'm self-regulating within this time of increased triggers. I'm not dissociating or otherwise reacting from survival much at all. There are physical trigger responses more in play, like insomnia and sleep disruption. But I'm able to simply hold myself through it without entering emotional flashback.

I trust myself to safely navigate this. So I'm actively working the situation, curious to see what it's bringing up, what trauma wiring is ready to unravel a bit more as I carry myself through this temporary storm.

I developed the internal capacity to do so by taking step after step up this mountain.

I found powerful supports along the way, specific tools for releasing shame, for attuning to my nervous system's messages and needs, resources for beginning to address my projections that contributed to or perpetuated patterns of trauma. I will share those resources if asked, not to involve myself in anyone's journey in the slightest, but to share the things that I found useful.

People aren't for fixing, either.

One of the things I love about where I am now is that I am able to offer support without assuming “consent for treatment,” or being driven by that common need to demand an outcome from a “help-ee” to stroke my own ego. Another thing I'm cherishing is a growing capacity for opening to receive. I used to shut right down even when offered safe support. There are times when I still do, but again, I can see so much progress.

I have developed trust in myself to know who's truly offering unconditional, walk-alongside support and who's on a fixing mission, with boundary issues in play for which I am not available. I have shown myself that I can trust myself to hold my own boundaries, no matter who wants, or projects, what. Someone else's rejection doesn't define me any more than my own missed steps. I no longer need to prove myself to myself or any other.

I'm getting to the point where I'm here for the view. Of me. Of my progress. Of the world, but with fresh vision.

Thanks for reading. ❤️‍🔥