Who Will I be if I am no longer a Trauma Victim?

When I was doing serious hypnotherapy, I didn’t know that I was holding on to the identity of being a “trauma survivor”. I didn’t even know that there was such a thing called “letting go”; I didn’t even understand the term trauma. For me it felt like that I was being pulled in a direction and I didn’t quite know where this would lead me.

I think in some ways, it was blessing in a disguise. Since I didn’t quite know what I was doing, I wasn’t really afraid of what might happen.

Since then, I have spoken to and read about many adults who have experienced similar experiences to mine and were afraid of “healing”. They were afraid who they would find once they let go of being a trauma survivor. The fear of the unknown sometimes becomes greater than the fear of living with the trauma.

So I thought I would share what happened “after” I had completed my first major therapy. How did I find the new me? I feel that by sharing my journey, I would de-mystify the process for you and hopefully, inspire you to embrace the unknown and go full-force with your own healing journey.

My first set of major therapy was hypnosis combined with automatic writing. In the previous two blogs, I wrote my experiences of writing automatic letters to myself and automatic letters to the abusers. Combined this with hypnotherapy, I was finally able to let go of my “trauma identity”; I was able to let go of the pain-body that I was holding on for so long.

Below are my experiences after I finished my therapy:

The Emptiness and Hibernation

Not long after the therapy ended, I went to one of my favourite clubs with friends and hated it. I was sitting there not understanding what was wrong. The music was exactly how I had always liked it; I loved hanging out with my friends and I loved partying and dancing but, in that moment, all of it felt wrong. I couldn’t stay there and came home.

There was a sense of “emptiness” inside of me. I felt confused and wasn’t really sure what that meant either. It was like being born again and not having parents to explain it all to me. It was scary and I had no choice but to move forward and keep trying to work it out. I wanted to understand why all the things that I had enjoyed before, in a flash, changed to not being enjoyable.

But I couldn’t work it out. I couldn’t understand and I got tired of looking. I felt lonely and the best strategy I came up with was to “avoid”. I wanted to stop looking inside myself.

So I gave myself 8 weeks’ break. I would come home from work and then just watch movies, and tv shows (I was into Charmed those days). It felt good. I had allowed myself to be lost in the world of magic, complicated emotions (but they weren’t mine) and love and romance and good old good vs evil stories.

It was good. My therapist had said to me, that after the therapy my body would change and I had to allow it. By watching tv, I was allowing my body to do its thing and I was getting out of the way.

Looking back at it, I think this hibernation was the best thing I did. For the first time, I had allowed myself to not battle, not try and fix things and actually just be.

The Clean Up

After my hibernation ended, I slowly started to get involved in my life again. I was still not sure of who I was but I was willing to be open and live my life and see what happened.

Shortly after, I went to Europe (Finland, Italy, and Denmark) for a few weeks and hung out with friends. I was surprised by how relaxing the holiday was. I wasn’t used to feeling like this. There was no drama, no aggression, and no restlessness.

Slowly, my friends started changing and my friendships started changing. It felt like that my life was cleaning itself and I could do nothing but watch. Things that weren’t good for me were leaving me without me even trying. A few of my friendships ended in weird ways; some of the men drifted away slowly, and I started to be more assertive about my boundaries. I started to say Yes and No in ways that were surprising to me. My body was finally waking up. It was taking the stand for itself. This was a very liberating experience.

My “hopes” for a future returned and even that felt strange.

This cleanup operation lasted for about 12 months and when I came out at the other end, I no longer felt empty. My last symbolic action that I did was to cut my hair.

Embracing the New Me

My final act of embracing this new me for to cut my hair.

I still remember the feeling when I had cut my hair. I felt light; I felt like a new being; I could look in the mirror and see a beautiful and sexual woman, which was a completely new experience to me. I had let go of the “old me”.

Life became an adventure. Not that it wasn’t an adventure before but I had broken my shackles and was able to experience this adventure in a fresh way.

Life has never been the same with the new RUBY being born.

** Image courtesy http://www.thechangeblog.com/