Therapy and dealing with your past and making your mental health a priority is so much harder than pushing it down deep and trying to block it out. It is like having a full-time job where all you do is try to NOT think about it. “It’s in the past, you can’t change it, you can’t fix it.” It’s nonsense. It isn’t in the past if you spend so much time trying to forget it. It is with you every day and for most of that time, I spent wondering what I did wrong. How could I have made it different? Could I have been quieter, less me, and more what they wanted? The answer is NO. I was a child and some of the “responsible adults” in my childhood were tasked with caring for me – did not. They hurt me. Physically and mentally. I have the scars to prove it.
But, I have found that therapy and working through my issues are far less painful. I don’t put all of the blame on my shoulders anymore. I see the past for what it was now. I was a victim and I did nothing to deserve it. I stopped carrying their burden, and now whenever I start to feel like I am pushing it all down, I check in with myself. I let the painful memories come in and now I see that I had no way of stopping what happened and whatever I had to do to survive is not something