I saw a post by Jeffery Marsh yesterday that has sat with me, heavily. It read, “The problem with ‘You don’t need to be defined by your trauma’ is that you can’t help but be defined by your trauma. Yes you can work through trauma, but it will define your worldview forever. AND GOOD NEWS, that’s fine. Trauma doesn’t make you ‘damaged’ or less of a person.”

I have honestly never thought about if my trauma defined me or not because it wasn’t something that detracted from who I am as a person. Being sent to therapy at a very young age by a step mother because she thought we “didn’t love her,” that does define me and that choices I make now as an adult on how to show my love. It plays a role in how I interact with my own children, making sure I try my damnedest to not make my children feel they need to hold that space for me. It’s my job to show them love and how to love, not their jobs to make me feel loved.

Does waking in the middle of the night to a different step mother stumbling down the hall after a suicide attempt define me? Absolutely. It has made me hyper aware. It has made me afraid of the dark.
Has returning to live in that home for a year after that night defined me? Completely. I lived in two different homes, all within the same four walls. One where I was ousted and treated like the awkwardness in the household was somehow my fault, as a 15 year old, just trying to make sense of holding the burden of my step mother’s uncontrolled mental illness. Trying to get through school and not draw attention to myself because the one time I spoke with a friend about what was happening at home, my step mother made me feel like I had did something so unconscionably wrong. A home where she would make threats about driving her car off the road with me in it. And a home where she would make sure I was never alone with my father when he was home from work, seemingly afraid I would tell him of the goings on when he wasn’t around. It wasn’t until years later I learned that she was telling him completely opposite accounts of our relationship, how much she adored me, how wonderful things were between us.

The trauma of things I can’t yet speak about publicly because sometimes it’s better to not hurt already hurt people with your account of things.

Does this trauma make me feel broken? No. I am not how others treat me. Their inability to see me through whatever pain they were dealing with, it doesn’t weigh me down. It has fueled me to try to do everything I need, make every right choice for myself, it has brought me to a place of putting my needs first and taking care of them, because that’s what I had to do. It defines me in that way. I’ve been working on growing out of this mindset and while I do think there is great power in taking care of oneself, it has left me generally not opening up in a way to let people care for me if they feel called to. It’s left me only asking for help if things are dire and even then, feeling an immense amount of guilt when I do ask for help.

On the other hand, it has left me with a caring heart. One that can see the pain that my step mothers were working through, knowing that they were/are also humans struggling through a human existence. It defines me in working diligently on letting those in my life know what they mean to me.

Things happened to me, that were out of my control. It has left me with scars, scars on my psyche, that have a lasting impact on who I am today. The woman who is constantly yearning for better, to be better. The person who feels like the only constant in her life sometimes is that everything will change. The human who isn’t broken by having experiences that were “less than ideal” but had they been any different, I’m not sure I’d like the person sitting here today.

I am not damaged. I am whole and ever-changing and through all my trauma, I am worthy.