How I Overcame The Things I Thought Would End Me
By: Kaitlyn Holen
Tags: Trauma, Healing, Personal Development, Personal Growth, Healing From Trauma

Photo Credit: Dann Kasallis Photography LLC

As many of my regular readers know, I was victimized by sexual violence — not once, but twice. Separate occasions, separate offenders, separate traumas.

What those two traumatic events have in common is what followed them: the absolute gut-sinking feeling that my life would be forever changed. That I would have to find ways to live with the aftermath of what happened to me.

I still remember the days after, coming to this realization that I could never again be the same version of myself, but not knowing what that truly meant. (No one teaches you about the awful things that occur even after the “worst of it” is over). In many ways, my life, body, and mind, became a mystery to themselves shadowed by an overarching sense of doom.

I was definitely right about the impending doom because my traumas quickly swallowed me whole. What I did not know is that I would eventually be spit out as an even better form of myself. Like a pearl formed years in the darkness of its oyster, I have created a rare beauty — it is the new, shining version of me.

These are the elements of my re-making — i.e. how I overcame the things I once thought would end me.

I made a commitment to myself.

“I will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to make it through this”

Early on, I had to make a conscious decision about how I was going to continue living my life. With all the numbness I felt initially, intuition was literally screaming at me to make a commitment to myself. It would’ve been so easy to let myself wither away into the nothingness I already felt. Believe me, it was quite an attractive option at the time (especially having already been feeling dead inside).

After living a few weeks of sleeping with a knife under my pillow, obsessively checking and re-checking locked doors, and collapsing from panic attacks, I learned that “giving up” required as much energy and resilience as it would take to fight for myself. So, I decided to fight.

I did so by making this commitment to myself: “I will do whatever it takes for however long it takes to make it through this.” That was the beginning of true healing.

I invested in the healing process.

My investment came in three forms primarily: financially, emotionally, and timewise.

My mom instantly helped me get set up with trauma-based therapy. Sometimes, it was hard to afford even having good health insurance. $25 each week adds up! Having recently completed my 100th therapy session, I’ve invested quite a bit of money in myself. I now realize that my weekly debt of $25 is nowhere near the value that therapy has brought to me.

It was more than just 100 hours of specialized attention and support. I was a human in training, becoming the best version of myself. I worked on shedding layers of trauma and their accompanying emotion each day away from the therapy office. I was on a consistent cycle through sadness, fear, rage, helplessness, and empowerment. Objectively, I was a HOT MESS. A beautiful one though.

“I was a human in training, becoming the best version of myself”

There were countless times that I was desperate to do things the rest of people my age were doing(dancing, traveling, getting degrees, and falling in love). I frequently felt that I was losing time. Occasionally caught up in the frustration, I would try to rush back into life. But every time I strayed from my healing, I was always brought right back to the path I’d begun walking(spending energy you don’t have is highly unsustainable).

After failed attempts to re-engage with what I thought my life should be like, I finally submitted to the process.

Once you begin the investment in healing, you’ll understand what I’ve come to know now:

An investment into yourself will always have you going deeper and deeper into the healing process. You will always be called back to walk the paths of darkness before you can walk in the light. Choosing yourself is not only an act of love, but of profound courage. You are signing on to feel the full spectrum of human emotion, especially the ones you’ve stowed away. Healing is an ongoing down payment for what it costs to live, but that time, money, and emotional fatigue is the doorway to joy and true happiness. Gradually, your investment accumulates as wealth as you become stronger, braver, and more resilient than you ever dreamed possible.

I recreated the meaning of the word “justice”.

#findingmyjustice actually meant finding acceptance for the justice I would never receive. My offenders escaped through the countless loopholes and failings of the judicial symptoms to hold people like them accountable.

I still remember the heartbreak of reading the prosecutor’s decision to not pursue charges based on “insufficient evidence”. I had to live with the “evidence” every single day via PTSD. My life was altered in so many ways that were unfair and certainly unjust. It didn’t matter though; the emotional scars carried no weight in court.

Having done everything I could to seek justice (as defined by society) and having completely failed, I was forced to find solace in another way.

“Justice is found in the truth we speak”

This is the mantra I adopted following the shortcomings to hold my perpetrators accountable.

And I swear, I will never cease in speaking my truth, because that is the only way that things may eventually change for the better. Silence is compliance. And I will never have my story stolen from me.

I allowed others to support me.

Pre-trauma, I was always someone who worked hard for the things I wanted and rarely shared my emotions so that I would not burden others. I went as solo as I could, trying to prove to myself and my parents how capable of “adulting” I was.

When I had no choice but to reach out for support, I finally did. I told my family and best friends what had happened to me. They didn’t always react in ways I wished they would, but they eventually evolved with me to support in ways that were helpful.

I accepted all of the support I could get because I truly needed it. I am so thankful that I set aside my pride; accepting support is a huge reason I’ve overcome the things I presumed to be my soul’s demise.

I embraced vulnerability and said goodbye to shame.

Experiencing trauma shattered my identity. In order to regain my sense of self, I sorted through the pieces of my being that no longer fit. Then, I replaced them with ones that better served me. This practice of re-building required vulnerability to the thousandth degree.

To exile the pieces of shame that had accumulated throughout my life(traumas included), I needed to acknowledge and talk through each one. It was terrifying to share them even with someone I was paying to help.

I’ve now shared EVERY source of guilt and shame with my therapist. She knows all the details of my shortcomings, mistakes, and things I felt I could never speak out loud. When she consistently met me with empathy, compassion, and respect, shame was quickly eradicated. She was right when she said, “shame only lives in the dark.”

Practicing vulnerability is something that I now do often. Doing so keeps shame far away. There is no longer a place for it and I refuse to create space for toxic things in my mind and body.

I accepted that my life path was completely different than what I’d hoped.

As one year turned to two and two turned to three, it got harder to avoid comparison. The hardest part was not to compare myself to the ideas of what my life should be [had I not been victimized by sexual violence]. People kept telling me that I was young and had so much time left for my dreams to be realized, but this piled on more disappointment. My life was nowhere near what I had expected it to be.

I was supposed to be traveling full-time by now, writing as I pleased, getting my Master’s, and working to restore peace in the world. I was supposed to be fit, dancing the nights away, and feeling beautiful in my younger years. Instead, I was tethered to my home state, struggling to pay bills, gaining 20+ pounds, and the farthest from inner-peace as possible. I was hardly alive it seemed.

Eventually I realized that the expectations I held of myself were only holding me back. By spending my time comparing my life situation to my envisioned self, I was only prolonging my healing.

To move forward, I needed to accept that 1) my traumas happened, 2) I had to deal with them, and 3) most importantly, I needed to accept that my life path was completely different than what I’d wished for.

Once I found this acceptance, my healing sped up tenfold!

I learned to be patient and to trust in my rising.

Photo Credit @ia.fotos (IG)

I went through many cycles of emotional strife, release, and reparation. Over and over and over again, my therapist and I dissected each circumstance of my childhood, teen years, and adult years that had left me hurt and damaged.

I never knew when the day would come that “the work” would pay off. The day that I would set myself completely free from the pains of my past. I did know, however, that I would have to be patient in the process. I did know that I would have to trust that things would work themselves out in their own time.

In the times I practiced patience, continuously surrendering control of the speed of healing, I was rewarded. Not financially or in a single moment of profound progress, but in the little things like less panic attacks, less fear in public, less reliance on anxiety-reducing medications, less emotional instability, less nightmares, and MORE time enjoying life.

As things improved, I began trusting that there was a divine timing to my life. I took the pressure off of myself to heal as quickly as possible and instead began trusting in my rising.