This is a three part blog series from Survivor “Anonymous.” In this series, Anonymous shares her reflections on what she is learning about herself, her community, and her world during this season of living through COVD-19 and a global pandemic.
WHAT I AM LEARNING ABOUT MYSELF
I have been carrying a feeling of helplessness that runs deeper than COVID-19. COVID-19 has undoubtedly shaken up many of our lives. While my experience of this pandemic is entirely different than my experience being exploited by my trafficker, I am learning, through therapy, that my body can pick up on familiarities that my cognitive brain doesn't always make space for. One thing that has helped me up until this point has been my ability to use cognitive reasoning to “think my way to a balanced state,” and while that can be effective for many situations, it failed to bring comfort when COVID isolations started. On the one hand, I knew that I was safe and that I had everything I needed, but on the other, I felt as though something was still incredibly wrong. I shared with my therapist that I could not articulate the feeling of wrongness, which prompted her to illuminate the power of the body. Over this time, I have realized that the reason that I felt uneasy as COVID unfolded is that it brings a sense of powerlessness that is not a new feeling in my body. While the level of powerlessness I experience is not the same as when I was exploited, situations that activate a similar sense of helplessness can still be enough to trigger the discomfort I felt before.
Over this time, I have realized that the reason that I felt uneasy as COVID unfolded is that it brings a sense of powerlessness that is not a new feeling in my body.
My journey to self-acceptance involves actively learning to value myself exactly as I am regardless of where I have been. The past three months have woven into a season of trying to listen to my body and quiet my inner critic; it is both a season of movement and a season of grief: grieving change, connection and a type of freedom. I have always carried this belief that in order to be “normal” or successful, I needed to put my experiences into a box and hide them in a place that no one (including myself) would be able to find. It has been nine years since I was ready to leave my trafficker, and eight since I have been able to begin carving out a new life outside of his presence. My attempts at detaching from my experiences have been reinforced by the notion that “I should be over it by now.” This season has illuminated how fully I have fallen into a mind-frame aligned with the societal stigma surrounding my story. I have repeated a personal mantra that suggests that I can never “actually” be worthy of the life I aspire to - because of my inability to erase what has caused me to be permanently “damaged.” As I invited myself into reflection and unpacking of my self-assigned eternal unworthiness, the incongruency between how I see myself and others became apparent. I believe that that everyone is worthy of love, support, compassion and that their inherent worth is entirely separate from their actions or experiences. And even while I believe this, I work to apply this to every human being except myself.
I believe that that everyone is worthy of love, support, compassion and that their inherent worth is entirely separate from their actions or experiences. And even while I believe this, I work to apply this to every human being except myself.
This awareness has allowed COVID isolation to challenge me to ask myself how it is that I can reframe this narrative and welcome the trafficking part of my story into my life, not in a way that festers and continues to take up all of my resources, but in a way that encourages it to become a piece of my foundation – providing me with (healthily adapted) strengths and skills for future endeavours. This challenge is significant because the reality is that there won't be "an over it," not entirely; there will be seasons where my experiences are highly manageable and other seasons that will be a lot harder to hold, especially when trauma can be reignited by what is going on in the world, whether that is something like COVID or something like witnessing an accident.
My takeaway is that I can choose to allow my past to swallow me whole, or I can learn to interact with it in such a way that places me at the center of my experience with power and agency. I am learning to talk about it a bit more when I have nightmares or feel a trigger as we walk through places that feel unsafe. I am learning to accept that inviting others in contributes to resilience.
My takeaway is that I can choose to allow my past to swallow me whole, or I can learn to interact with it in such a way that places me at the center of my experience with power and agency.
A little food for thought: I currently am working through my Bachelor of Social Work, and I was met with a new approach to understanding resilience – a term those close to me often choose to 'compliment' me with. In a course, it was suggested that resiliency shouldn't be the only goal of recovery, but a key for understanding more about a survivor's journey. The problem lies behind what is forcing individuals to be resilient; resiliency isn't as much a gift as it is a full-time, life-long job. When considering and encouraging resiliency, we need also to allow space for resiliency to be both sad and celebrated, for the experience of injustice to be valid, and to be witnessed so that that injustice can be harnessed and interacted with in such a way that the individual may use it as their foundation - on their own terms.
Thank you kindly for taking the time to read these posts.
Sincerely,
Anonymous
Check back tomorrow for the next part of this reflection, “What I am learning about community.”
Note: Restorations recognizes the importance of financially compensating survivors for their time, energy, and expertise and, as such, we financially compensate all survivors who contribute written pieces for the blog. We strongly believe in the necessity of financial compensation for this work, and we urge other organizations who request survivors to speak, write, or consult for their organization to do likewise for the following reasons:
to demonstrate a commitment to honour and respect survivors’ time, energy, and expertise;
to demonstrate an appreciation for the emotional, mental, and physical energy necessary to share their experiences with us in order to benefit others;
and to demonstrate a commitment to developing the economic independence of survivors.
