Trauma was never meant to be a cloak.

I recently published my first book called, The Unbroken Trained to be Broken and after writing it, I began to see myself in a completely different light. There was a huge void in my life and there were many times where I looked in the mirror and covered sorrow with make-up and a practiced smile.

I never understood why I kept finding myself in a friendship or relationship that I had to recover from, but that was once a normal thing for me. I shared my story in the form of my first book and now I can break down majority of the areas I struggled in. The biggest take-away was that a place of peace and safety was foreign to me. Abuse can be categorized as sexual, physical, financial, emotional, mental, or even spiritual abuse. I have experienced it all and wasn’t very familiar with anything outside of abuse. So, it is no wonder I kept drifting my way right back into it.

There was a time when I wished I had learned all of these lessons sooner, or that I could rewind time and apply what I know now. Fortunately, that is not an option and that is okay! I learned the lessons at a time it would benefit me the most and my children to follow. Being a former victim of domestic violence wasn’t an easy topic for me to talk about. I kept it a secret for years and even tried to save the relationship because of embarrassment. Everything about that experience was a lie, but I didn’t have the knowledge or courage to walk away. I literally relinquished all of my power to someone who didn’t have self-control. To an outsider, it may be easy to say you should have left after the first sign of abuse. But how is that possible if you were never shown another way? As I previously stated, I had experienced various forms of abuse since I was 8 years old and it doesn’t just go away.

When I finally decided to cut all ties with my ex-husband, I was fearful of what the world would have to offer me. I mean I was a single mother of six beautiful, yet demanding children. I had to apply the lessons that I was teaching them to my own life; I would have rather trained for the Boston marathon to be honest! It is HARD to unlearn all that I did in my youth. I found it easier to put ointment on my wounds or to take pain medication, so I could prepare for the next round of fights. I used to wake up daily and put on my gear for TRAUMA!!! I wasn’t designed for this, but I wore it faithfully and almost with pride.

True strength is not in how well I could take a hit or be slammed into a wall or window, however, I once thought it was. Those are a few experiences of abuse that I was used to and made me think so poorly of myself. I cried daily until I couldn’t cry anymore and lost so much weight at a very rapid and unhealthy pace. True strength is refusing to settle one more minute and be treated like you are less than the person in front of you. Trauma happens to all of us, but it doesn’t have to become our identity. My struggle and frustration came from expecting to live an amazing life while drinking poison daily. Everybody does not share the same levels of trauma and no other circumstance should void your own experience. There is healing after trauma, it is just a matter of putting in the work daily to get out of the pain.

My prayer is that you decide today to take that trauma-riddled, cloak off. It is dangerous and may possibly cost you everything you love or your life. Be kind to yourself as you work through the pain and if you cannot bare it alone, let’s link up so I can support you along the way.