This has been big for me recently. There have been times in the last few weeks where I've felt like I should have made more progress than I have in my journey thus far. But through some intensive journaling I've done over the last several weeks, the above text in the image came directly from my journal. If you moved 1 millimeter forward this week, that's still better than where you were last week! And that's 52 millimeters (~2 inches) at the end of the year! THAT is still progress, and that should still be celebrated.
It's all about the baby steps. Processing trauma can be SO incredibly difficult. Some pieces may be easier to work through, but some hit you in the face like an oncoming train. And those pieces are the ones that will take a significant amount of time to heal from, and that is okay. The key is that you are constantly working on it. You are pushing forward to a better and healthier you. As long as you are moving forward and not remaining stagnant, not sitting in your trauma, not blaming others, and addressing things, you are making progress.
ALL progress is progress.
As I've been processing all of this, I turned to poetry, as I often do. There's just something therapeutic about it for me. So here's my latest:
Processing Trauma
Our brains have a funny way of keeping things locked
The trauma we experience gets hidden and blocked
Sometimes we don’t even have memories of events
Until something triggers it and then it gets intense
In those unexpected moments the whole world seems to freeze
Suddenly the horrors you can recall with great ease
It feels like you’re back in those moments of pain
As if it were happening, reliving it again
You’re trapped in a time capsule, no feasible way out
You want to escape, but your body’s stuck on this route
It’s like you are watching it all unfold from afar
Being reminded of each and every one of your scars
The amount of strength it takes to pull yourself out
To get back to reality, to silence those doubts
It takes everything in you to come back to earth
To not let it rule you, to remember your worth
And then in those moments, you may have chats in your head
Telling trauma brain to cool it, stop filling with dread
You’re out of the fire you’re safe and you’re free
It’s over and done with, there’s no need to flee
It’s hard, it’s not easy, to process these thoughts
And it can be tough to connect all the dots
Allow yourself space to work through all your pain
This process takes time, so be kind to your brain
It may be one of the hardest things that you’ve done
You might want to scream and you might want to run
But processing through all your traumas and fears
I promise will lead you to much better years
You have it inside you to push through the hurt
To forge a new path and dust off all that dirt
Sometimes you may stumble, sometimes you may fall
But progress is progress no matter how small
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