Honestly, healing from chronic / childhood trauma isn’t pretty, it isn’t romantic, most of the time it isn’t some beautiful story of a perfectly innocent victim rising to become strong
A lot of healing from chronic / childhood trauma is realizing there is a lot of dirt, grime, hurt, pain, and problematic behaviors and beliefs that living in such an environment has instilled inside of you.
It is realizing a lot of things you thought were normal were not, and a lot of the things you’ve done that you thought were given truths and normal things about the world were false, not needed, and hurtful to others and yourself around you.
A lot of people want a healing story that is inspiring and beautiful - with a clear abuser and a clear victim - someone who was clearly 100% perfect, innocent and never did anything wrong in life and someone who was clearly 100% evil, intentional, corrupt, and malicious. The hero / villian story of trauma, abuse, and recovery is so much easier to digest both for others and the person, but the reality is - living through hell instills and causes people to learn things that aren’t 100% perfect and innocent.
No trauma survivor or victim deserves what happened to them, nor did they ask for it in any form, but it isn’t abnormal for one to unknowingly after growing up and living in an environment that was dangerous, harmful, and painful to learn things that aren’t the best in the general world.
Trying to heal, mistakes will be made, a lot of unlearning and relearning will happen. People - especially children and teenagers who grew up in these environments - will likely reenact what happened to them or use defensive mechanisms that aren’t the best that they got from assuming the world is like their home.
Many will do things that aren’t “okay” or are “problematic” because that is all they know. This isn’t to say it is okay or excusable. This isn’t to say you should forgive anyone who did this to you.
This is to those who did bad things in the past that they punish themselves for, hate themselves for, the bad things they did due to being young and in a stage of survival.
The past does not define you and you were young and living by what you were taught growing up. You are not a horrible person because of how you learned to live. Who you are is found in the present and the future and in what you do now and what you do later.
You can and deserve to forgive yourself and your younger selves for what had happened when you knew little more.
You aren’t horrible or terrible.
Being young is hard
Being a teen is hard
Having trauma is hard
Having chronic trauma is hard.
Being young and growing up in an environment conducive to chronic trauma is even harder.
You deserve and are allowed to forgive yourself and move forward and heal.
You deserve to heal just like anyone else.
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