I am hesitant to post publicly about my trauma. I’m afraid of being accused of trying to be the victim. I’m thinking that others will think that I have waited too long to talk about this and, now, in my 40’s, I should have moved on with my life today and no longer be thinking at all about what happened during my childhood. Today I was on the bus and I feel pretty anxious trying to socialize with other people but I thought I was doing pretty well. One issue was that I kept wanting to relate with my experiences. Someone asked me if I grew up here and I said “no”. I know that this bus driver is a really inquisitive person and might ask me more at some point, if he had the chance. Actually, I asked him about some of his experience growing up in this area and he talked about it. I like to hear other people’s stories….but mine always gets so complicated. How did I end up living in this city where all of my four biological grandparents were from but I did not grow up here and, still, after living here for about 12 years at this point, plus other smaller periods before that, I know barely anyone! I have no regular contact with anyone that lives in this small city other than my children and my husband? It involves mistreatment, abuse, family dysfunction and my disability, even to start talking about it! It’s not really something that I can talk about on a bus trip. Just a simple question from someone can have me wondering “how can I talk about my background at all?! I need to write a book!” This has often led to me thinking very deep thoughts about the meaning of life but it can be exhausting. Who am I? Where am I from? I can’t just answer it. I did share a little bit about having epilepsy with him and, as I was getting off the bus, he said “you’re doing great”. He is obviously a very sincere person and I started to tear up as I was walking away. I could never express to him how much it meant to hear that today, from an outsider. For all I know, he could be one of my family members I’ve been kept away from.

Trauma in childhood can go on to create more trauma and health problems. I’m really interested in how we move towards healing. On the other hand, I don’t want to focus on the healing aspect too much. I think there’s something really missing in the way that we try to “fix” our problems rather than just letting them be, with awareness, until they can pass on their own. And that takes time. It may never happen in this lifetime. I formed my views about the world in childhood. I saw my own suffering and wondered why things had to be so unfair in the world. I then looked to others who had more than their share of suffering because it was easy to relate to them. So I saw suffering everywhere. I wondered about why that was, in an urgent and passionate way, it often filled my mind and heart. I wanted to do something to fix the world! As it turns out, I didn’t know more than anyone else about how to do that. I couldn’t even fix myself.

I had partial seizures throughout my childhood but I didn’t realize what they were. They were these brief, otherworldly experiences which I assumed everyone had, and, after they passed, I felt tired and worn out as if I had just taken a trip up into space. During them, I felt like I was dying but it didn’t matter. I saw regular things around me but it all looked and felt different. I felt like I had seen all of this play out before and each step I took determined the rest of my life but I didn’t want to move. Everything seemed as it was supposed to be.

These little space-trips happened to me all the time. I tried to describe this to one of my friends when I was about 10 years old (I felt very excited to finally talk to someone I could trust about this), and I was sure that she would relate….but she couldn’t! I tried several different ways to describe the experience, always sure that she knew what I was talking about but I just wasn’t using the right words! But every time I finished she would say, “no, I’ve never experienced anything like that!” I wasn’t sure, she seemed completely sincere. Normally, she agreed with me on everything! Was I just weird? That’s what my birth family seemed to be saying all the time. Probably best to keep this a secret, like so many other things in my life, more and more adding up as I grew. I felt like I was protecting myself. I would figure it out later. The less anyone knew about me, the less they could hurt me or judge me. I would reveal who I really was when I got away from the haters. But I often wondered a lot about who that person was. Way too much time went into acting and I lost connection with her. And these space-trips were way more significant to my life than I could have ever imagined.

As soon as I told her about my new boyfriend in 6th grade she said that she was happy that I didn’t care about looks. I remember a frozen feeling inside. It’s like I stop breathing. Who is she? Why is she saying this? Just once, can’t she give some kind of expected response? “That’s nice” or something? She could be icy cold but she seemed to hide it. If she would just tell me what she actually thought or how she felt! But she always twisted things so that I had no idea to respond. I guess I just decided to keep being silent and go along with her act. I mean, she said this as if she were truly happy. I heard her telling her friends the same thing, right in front of me, like she was so proud of me, she was thinking that it was so wonderful of me to not care about looks. Each friend looked surprised, as if she didn’t know what she was doing, she just made an error in speaking, she didn’t know that I could hear. I felt tremendous pressure to end this beginner relationship. Mom was not happy about it. I should know what to do. Finally I just blurted out to him that we couldn’t “go out” anymore and I felt so ashamed. How much different would my life have been if I had had the ability to stand up to her? To not care what she thought? But most people don’t feel that way about their mothers.

Here I am again, getting ready to start up my blog again….convinced that no one wants to hear anything I have to say anyway, and rightly so. No one even READS blogs anymore! I heard Ken Jennings on Jeopardy say the other day “yeah! remember blogs?!” But I want to try, I’m honestly not sure why. I have things in my head but it’s been very difficult to put them into words. I guess 20 years of seizures (around 10-15 each year) will do that to you. Maybe this will be something useful for my kids to look at? To better understand me? I want to stop my tendency to be silent about the trauma I experienced throughout childhood and in my adult life as well. I would like my children to think that I’m a strong person after all I’ve been through. I keep hearing the voice saying that I’m not strong, I’m very weak and damaged. That was how my family wanted me and I don’t want to give up trying for something different. My family has always tried to convince me that I haven’t been through anything very difficult either. Is it true? Am I strong or weak?