Tag: dissociation

Layers and Levels

.Reading time 12 minutes.

I did an interview last week. On my life, sex trafficking, the links between pornography and the trafficking industry, how uneducated our world is on it especially men and what more needs to be done to tackle this monumental issue. I went through a stage where I was regularly doing interviews, sharing my story and writing about it. But as I started talking I realized how long it had been since I last spoke about any of it. I finished the interview and sat in my little office at work staring at the wall. Quite literally. Something strange always happens when I speak or write about my life in any capacity. It’s the easiest and most natural thing to do in the moment, BUT as soon as I’m finished I move into this hollow, dark and desolate place. Transported back into memories I’ve spent the last decade avoiding and coming face to face with the darkness I spent so long trying to overcome. As I sit at my desk I look around at all the photo’s on the wall. The many memories which have been made since that time. Years of normal have most  definitely replaced the abnormal and yet there’s always this piece which sits non-returnable. 

I know in this moment I need to pick up the phone and call my people. I know in this moment I sit in a choice, ever so slightly pushing the thin weak boundary between reality and moving into a state of incapacity. Feelings of fear, doubt, rejection and dread knock on the door, am I willing to let them in? Prepared for the consequences if I do? My phone rings multiple times but it’s distant and suddenly it becomes a whole lot harder to muster up any energy or control to keep myself grounded. My phone keeps ringing – background noise. I’m no longer avoiding, merely circumventing. I stare hard. The photo’s are keeping me grounded, I look at each one remembering exactly what I felt in that moment and the feelings of happiness surrounding  them. 

My smile fades as I sober back into reality. The darkness continues to grapple for control. I wonder why this is so hard? I question why it is sometimes easier to give into the tough than go into battle for the right? Without any restraint I could allow myself in this moment to sit with the darkness. To be engulfed with heaviness. To be overtaken by the past. It’s easy. It requires no effort. It glides in, settles down and silently controls. To fight for the light on the other hand is the complete opposite. It’s painful, a struggle. It means using every ounce of fight I have left in me. And even once I grab hold of it, it doesn’t seamlessly settle. No, it’s like battling a bed sheet that’s too small to cover the mattress. Tie one side down and you have to pounce on the other before it retreats back into a heap of uselessness. Why is that? It’s so much harder to physically make a place dark than make it light. Light seeps in through the gaps, overtakes the darkness at every cost. It would win hands down each time. Yet take out the physical and the darkness wins over and over again. We have to battle so much harder for the light to enter and  remain than for the darkness to penetrate and stay. 

For a moment I’m Switzerland. Neutral. Unengaged. I don’t allow the darkness or the light in. I think back through some of the questions. My answers. How did you end up in that world and how easy was it to fall into it? It was too easy. Scarily easy. Took no effort whatsoever from my part. Be broken enough, try hard enough to find your identity in the wrong place and life has your back. Sets you up. Completely. But how did I end up there? How does anyone end up  anywhere? Choices? Yes. Decisions? A series of events, as one unfolds the next is prepared. 

I stare at my computer. The couch. A little basketball hoop is mounted on the wall. A blanket drapes and the little fridge buzzes. Each item is attached with a memory. A shopping trip, an idea, a game, reminiscence. I smile. Each layer creates a level and suddenly I’m surrounded by everything. Good, bad, ugly. Tough and worth. I’m hit by a complete moment of realization of how incredibly crazy it all is. I’m at work. Sat in my office in Virginia Beach in America. A country that less than 5 years ago I’d never even visited. My husband is deployed, living in a different country 4000 miles away. Each level is comprised of so many layers. It makes us who we are. Determines how we think. Act. Respond. React. My interview took me back into a level that has more layers than most of the rest of my life put together. As I navigate through some of those layers naturally emotions, thoughts and memories emerge. It happens for all of us in some way. 

The decision still stares me in the face. Dark or light? Is it really a choice or is it merely a matter of time until one engulfs the other. I decide it’s definitely a choice. I’ve given in to darkness too many times to know the places I end up in aren’t good ones. Far from it. And even though it may seem easier in the moment, climbing back up out of those pits will always be more grueling than fighting for the light to prevail in this moment. I feel tired. Exhausted. It’s been a tough few months in more ways than one. But that just seems to be life. It’s never really been easy. There’s been incredible moments. Highs and mountaintops. But no one reaches those without first encountering the lows and stumbling through the valleys. It continues to be a journey. A journey of layers and levels, choices and decisions. There’s moments we get it right and more moments where we don’t. Life is unpredictable, unexpected and a lot of the time  unanticipated. 

The decision is so simple. Definitely not easy but certainly simple. Yet there’s something about the darkness which pulls. It’s not the ease of it, it goes deeper than that. For a moment I focus on my past. What were some of the toughest things you experienced? That was a hard question to answer. The list is too extensive, the years too long. Some of the inhumane acts I was involved in too much to put into words, the fear of rejection and judgement ring harshly if they were ever spoken out loud. I decide to stick with the safe answers. I explain the warehouses, the large studios with camera’s and lights, being tied up and gang raped, all filmed. Being held down beforehand and forcibly injected with heroine so that I would lose all control of my body and they could do anything and everything that needed to be done to it. I talked about it in the interview but no feelings were attached. Now I’m there. I can feel. It hurts but more than that is anger. At myself, who I am. My weakness. This is why the darkness pulls. Because it’s so much easier to admit defeat than have to fight to be something more. It’s simpler to sit in nonexistence than try to be somebody on a daily basis. It’s easier to believe the lies than swallow the truth. To step away from darkness means facing into the light. And light reveals. It reveals the layers and the levels. It indicates the work still needed, the healing that hasn’t yet taken place and the shortcomings we’re still giving into. 

Light reveals and darkness conceals. In a world full of hurt and pain, abuse and torment why wouldn’t we want to conceal? It seems so much easier. And maybe sometimes for a moment it is. But that’s all it is. A moment. While it might conceal, it doesn’t deal. And it’s not until we start dealing with it that the pain starts to fade and the hurt begins to dim.

I pick up my phone and call my people. I walk out of the office and surround myself with friends. The heaviness begins to evaporate, the darkness slowly retreating from its position of power and threat. The light begins to seep in through the cracks. I’m not fixed. Far from it. But  with each choice to turn my back on darkness a layer is formed, cemented in and I know one day I will look back and see new levels take me places I never thought I’d get to. It’s never easy. I don’t think it ever will be. But I’d like to believe it’s worth it. 

Mind Over Matter

.Reading time 14 minutes.

I sit on my bed. The house is quiet. Peaceful almost tranquil. To anyone else looking in it most definitely would be tranquil. But the storm raging on inside of me flooded the last rays of serenity many moments ago. My hand strokes lightly across the cover. I’ve counted them. Each  one of them. Their powder leaving small traces of evidence behind. As I continue to write in my journal, my eyes fill heavy and my pain lashes out uncontrollably. This is the end. It’s better this way. Easier. No more pain. No more hurting others. I don’t know where I’ll go, but I’ve come to peace with that. Have I come to peace with it? It terrifies me. Yet I see no other option. Life is too much. Too hard. I have no purpose. I stroke my hand across the covers again. Faint residue disperses ever so lightly. I close my journal. Put down my pen. As my tears dry up, a hardness engulfs. Stop being so weak. All I’ve ever been is weak. I grab a handful of sedatives and swallow hard. A small bottle of vodka helps ease the nerves. Another handful and another. I gag. NO. Do not be weak. I swallow again. More vodka. I know my mind is going. Reality shakes as I start to lose control. Grounding techniques, I need to use grounding techniques. I can’t remember them. I have to finish this. My hand becomes distant, the pills become faint. NO. Don’t stop. I bang my head. I sniff my perfume. I start talking loud. STAY HERE. I’ve almost finished them. For a fleeting moment I’m proud of myself but as I finish the last mouthful of dissolving powder the mist returns and the distance comes raging closer. I lose control. I’m falling backwards. The darkness sucking so hard I lose grip and tumble down. Far down. The pit larger and deeper than I ever remembered it. Impenetrable yet with ease I pass through. There’s no more time for regrets. Too late to take it back. Consumed with nothing, I’m full. It’s done. So done.  

How do you come back from something like that? How do you start again? Move forwards? I was supposed to be dead. My heart stopped multiple times en-route to the hospital. My body had leaked every bodily fluid possible. I was unconscious for more than 3 days and when I eventually woke up in the ICU the doctors and nurses couldn’t believe I had survived. Not only was I alive, there was minimal damage left from what could have been a fatal catastrophe. My body was ok. My mind was not. I woke up so broken, so alone, shattered into a thousand tiny pieces with no clue in the world on how to start again.  

Five and a half years ago I sat in a little room on my own. It had been just hours since finally being discharged from the hospital after taking an overdose which miraculously, and it truly was a miracle, did not kill me. Even after surviving something I never should have survived I still contemplated trying it again. I had categorically entered into the lowest of lows and in these darkest moments would come a choice I would live by for the rest of my life. I had made multiple attempts on my life, dissociated hundreds of times, many of which had been incredibly dangerous, survived years of abuse and walked out of sex trafficking. That night in that little room something happened that I will never fully be able to explain. But I saw the choice crystal clear in front of me. In that moment I knew without a shadow of a doubt that if I attempted suicide again, I would be successful and I would not survive. I resisted, I screamed, I cried and I fought back. An unseen battle raging so strong. Mind against matter. I hated life, I wanted nothing to do with it. I did not want to keep going. Yet in the middle of the struggle, amidst the onslaught of emotions, I chose. I chose LIFE. I said Yes. Whatever that would look like. I knew it would come in all shapes and sizes. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. Not for a moment. But for the first time I understood there might be a reason why I was still alive, and despite feeling purposeless, who was I to decide that nothing could ever change. That one choice, became a minute-by-minute choice. Over time it turned into an hourly choice, a daily choice and eventually it formed into a habit that I no longer have to think about.  

I have come a million miles in the last 5 and a half years. I don’t recognize my life. The first couple of years were ridiculously tough. Tackling therapy on a new level, it hurt. Memories are painful, regrets agonizing and starving out the old highly uncomfortable. But as the bad is cut away, room is made for the new. And with it comes fresh oxygen and ripe fruit. I have learned it’s not mind against matter, it’s mind over matter. Most matters in my life I cannot control. But my mind I can. Life throws us curveballs at every point of the way. Some we can dodge, some we can even catch, but many will hit us and attempt to make us fall back or fall over. It’s those big ones, the ones which make us wobble, where we choose mind over matter. We decide how it lets us affect us, we determine how we respond. I have come to understand my triggers and know when a ‘matter’ attempts to take charge over my mind. Panic, chaos, exhaustion, desperation and hopelessness are just a few of the alarm bells going off when the wrong leader takes the lead. I have to shift gear, take a minute and reestablish correct order. No ‘matter’ should ever take charge over our mind. We have been given phenomenal minds, incredible brains and an unbelievable ability to overcome almost anything. Do we choose to let matters take charge? Or we do we decide that our mind is more powerful.

I wasn’t just ‘fixed’. I went through more than 7 years of therapy to get to where I am today and years of ‘choosing’ how I was going to respond to situations and even more challenging than that, feelings. Every day is still filled with choices. Feelings come in and try to take over. But I have been given a mind which is able to listen to my feelings, but take control and often decide a different course instead. Mind over matter. For years I heard the phrase, never really  contemplating what it actually meant. 

This week I went for a run with my little sister. I say ‘little’, at almost 6ft tall she’s a whole lot bigger than me! The run was supposed to be 3 miles (5k) and we were gonna be picked up at the other end by our mom! We set off with 3 dogs and 25 minutes later we finished the run. What we didn’t realize is that the pick-up point was another 20 minute walk away! By the time we arrived (fast jog/sprint) we were so late my mom had turned around and left as she had another appointment. We were stuck! Seriously thirsty, ridiculously dusty and very tired! It was an hour wait (at least!) to get picked up, at least an hour to walk back or we could do the same run again and be back in 25 minutes! We chose option 3! I know we’re crazy… but this blog was birthed out of this experience. I absolutely did not think I could run all the way back. I was DEAD, exhausted, my legs hurt and having not done many runs over the past month, slightly out of peak condition. But with a much younger sister who’s only completed 2 runs all year, I wasn’t ready to cave and say I couldn’t do it! So we set off. 27 minutes later we were home. Not at any point was it easy or enjoyable. I could hardly walk by the time we got back. BUT I was reminded of the power of my mind. Despite not ‘feeling’ like I could do it, my mind took charge and decided we were doing it. 

Time and time again during the past many years, I have had to choose mind over matter. Situations I didn’t think I could handle, emotions too great to understand. Hardships and losses, goodbyes and great challenges. Life will never be a breeze. It will never be just easy. I know for many this last season has been one of the toughest so far. Many feel out of control and lots of us unsure of what the future holds. Despite the unknowns, the matters which remain unpredictable, your mind is powerful and was created to be in control. Whatever you’re going through today, whatever your current situation looks like, take a moment to see who or what is in charge. Are feelings leading your every day? Situations dominating your life? Who’s at the head of your table?

I’m about to walk into one of the most challenging seasons of my life. These past few weeks I’ve had to make some of the toughest decisions I’ve ever had to make. My heart feels torn in so many directions. My feelings are screaming at me to take over. Emotions overwhelming to a point of bursting. Yet I know I have a choice and I’m choosing to stay calm in the midst of what feels like chaos and too many unknowns. My mind is in control and I’m going to make sure it stays that way. Mind over matter. The matter for me right now is big, scary and intimidating. But my mind I know well. It’s become safe and predictable. It knows how to respond. And that’s my prayer for you too today. No matter what you’re facing, how daunting or hopeless  your situation might be. Know that you have been given a mind that is incredibly powerful and immensely strong. You can be in control even when everything around you feels out of control. And you can choose, even when it doesn’t seem like you have any choices left.