Processing Past Trauma

The beginning of an escalating abusive situation.

I have seen people share hilarious things they've written in their diary during their childhood or youth, but not all childhood diary entries are cheery. When I read back my own childhood diary, I don't laugh, but cry. I keep it buried away because it's not a funny diary that will put a smile on people's faces. Today, I share a part of my diary entry I wrote in 2008 at age 12. I realized that just because that phase of my life is disturbing and upsetting, doesn't mean that it is less worthy of being shared. The line I share from my diary was me describing the beginning of one of the biggest dilemmas I had to face.

They tell you in life, you have to be strong, ignore hate, and keep going. Has anyone ever told you that if someone is calling you names, just ignore them and they'll stop? When I was 7, that helped me with schoolyard name-calling. However, at age 13, that same mentality turned me into a silenced victim of chronic sexual harassment that kept escalating into a worse and worse situation. We carry so much of this mentality that we need to be "Strong", and not allow others to bring us down. In the end, I realized that I was faking to myself that certain experiences didn't bother me.

After a whole school year of constant belittlement, I kept moving on in my life. I went to high school, and then to university where I first started to experience signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. During that time, I felt zero control over the flashbacks and nightmares I had from the repetitive sexual harassment I had experienced when I was 13. Yes, it took five years for me to realize what had happened to me and I believe it's because of the "keep going and stay strong no matter what" mentality. This mentality that we are often fed, made me think that I had to block out all the words and actions that were said and done to me on the regular, in order to be strong, and succeed.

When I started to experience signs of PTSD five years later, it was especially a big struggle for me, as I was also in university for the first time. I would often feel drained with a lack of eagerness to do school work. At the same time, I was studying something I loved that often brought calmness to me during tough times throughout my childhood. I studied music. Eventually, my passion for music took over, and the drained feelings I had, my flashbacks and nightmares went away and were replaced with my ambition to become a better musician. I have graduated for almost 3 years now, but recently all my troubled feelings surrounding the past trauma came back.

I had been consistently exposed to something this past autumn, that triggered flashbacks and bad memories of the chronic sexual harassment I went through. I spent a couple of months feeling dread, anxiety, and depression. I was very upset that something from so long ago was still affecting me. And so, this autumn was extremely difficult for me, and my mental health was suffering. However, during this time I would think to myself often, and reflect on the situation in a healthy manner, now that I am older, have more self-love, and am generally mentally positive and healthier. For the first time in a decade, I was finally processing the trauma I had hidden away for so long. After a difficult time and enough reflecting, I have finally accepted what has happened to me because it did, and I can never pretend that it never happened. In fact, I feel liberated from this trauma because I now accept that it happened to me while acknowledging that what they did to me is never okay.

As a result of this realization, I now hope there is a way for us to spread mentalities that prioritize mental health. We need to spread a new common belief, that it is okay to not be okay. Many feel the need to hide away past trauma, and what they are suffering through. This way of thinking prevents us from processing past trauma, and our struggles. Based on my own experience, I think that sometimes victims are not ready to process the trauma they went through right away, and they should feel no shame to do so once they are ready.

I feel that in recent years, mental health awareness has become more prominent, and I have much hope. However, much more still needs to be encouraged, and talked about in order for victims to be more inclined to processing their trauma rather than feeling the need to hide it away.

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