Member-only story
CN: childhood sexual violence, trauma
This World Mental Health Day, I’m thinking ahead 12 days to my birthday (Oct 22.) I have a complicated relationship with my birthday because of the trauma I experienced during my childhood along with the neglect and abuse.
There’s a lot of reasons — the inconsistent celebrations, the shame and guilt I felt for wanting acknowledgment when there was so much going wrong at home, the deep desire to feel special at least on this one day — on the day the world said you are supposed to feel special and celebrated.
My therapist and I worked on these issues this year so I could perhaps just enjoy a nice birthday. We identified that I do very well with rituals, things like having blueberry muffins for breakfast on holidays or watching my favorite movie on my birthday. So that seemed to be going along swimmingly. I was able to actually identify a few simple gifts I would like to receive without feeling all the feelings.
Apparently, this processing has been working so well that my mind has advanced a few steps without letting me know. I’ve begun recently to have little memories, glimpses or flashes. They aren’t new or repressed memories, just things I haven’t thought about in a long, long time. Things like the frayed and worn out curtain in my bedroom window or the path we took…
