TW: Discussion of feeling after abuse
Your pain isn't unrelatable...neither is mine. But growing up, it sure felt like it. I felt like I was holding this dark secret and people could see me and just know that I was off or wrong. There was something about me that was shameful because of what had happened to me. I felt guilty for existing and taking up space. I felt like I needed to earn my place in situations and had a hard time asking for anything for fear of taking too much or being a burden. I still struggle with these feelings daily, but identifying them has helped me to take a small level of control over them.
I can reflect like this now after years of therapy but it has taken 10 years of on and off therapy and some serious work to reach this point alone. Everyone says "you are not alone"... but I always felt that I didn't belong in a category with anyone else. I am only now starting to realize what not being alone actually means.
You aren't alone in your pain. As isolated and strange as you may feel ....as wrong and out of place...as unrelatable and lost as you may feel, you aren't alone. Although there isn't anyone in the world who has experienced exactly what you have and done what you have done, there are many people out there that can relate. There are many people who have had similar experiences and can understand where you are because they are, or have been there too.
