Once Upon a Time in My Oceania

I recently came upon this term, glimmers, from a friend. I was instantly captivated at such a notion. A beautiful notion, at that. If you have complex and chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the word “trigger” is not just a word; it’s an experience. It can look like many different things connected to our senses: smell, touch, sound, sight, a taste, an emotional state—our senses are powerful mechanisms that connect the past to our present. However, sometimes these senses produce scrambled signals to our brains and if you have PTSD, you know all too well that it makes you feel the traumatic event is happening right in the here and now. Suddenly, the musky scent of a basement makes me cringe thinking of a few family vacations where the sexual abuse I endured as a child never got a break. Or the sight of a white church steeple reminds me of the house of worship where I was spiritually abused for years and felt stuck. Sometimes, it’s the taste of grape juice that we drank during commu...

  From childhood, I was afraid of being stuck. I always cringed and felt nauseous watching Alice in Wonderland where Alice shrank and then grew tall inside that house until it exploded. I felt that my emotions and fears could be similar. There were actual instances that contributed to this fear and ones that I’m not yet ready to share with others outside of my close family and therapist. However, some instances include being locked in a room with abusive people or being tied up by those same abusers just for their entertainment. My wrists still sting as I remember the struggle and my chest burns at the memory of the panic. Just writing this, I broke out in a sweat. (PTSD is fun. Sarcasm, obviously.) The point is, being stuck has been a terrifying trigger for me created by traumatic events that caused it. It’s difficult to have complex trauma that contributed to my chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. As my therapist told me a few months into our sessions over a year ago, not m...

  Confronting a past that has harmed you without any say from you is difficult. Trying to process the decisions and actions made by others against you is a new level of confusing. I remember when I was a young adult, and my one imprisoned abuser started the process to seek an early release after a few years into his sentence. I started to search for anything I could use to speak up on my behalf if the process ever made it farther. What happened was that I stumbled upon notes and information taken by social workers and the detective on my childhood abuse case. It was very difficult reading those notes, seeing the sadistic mindset of my abuser. I remember that when asked why he molested me as a child that his response was that I was “annoying.” In his abusive and twisted mind, he molested a child for being a child and to him who was annoying child at that. I remember the turmoil reading that unwarranted explanation caused in me. I was always told that I was annoying growing up and ...

  My journey post cult has been an uphill battle on most days. The trauma of surviving abuse and a cultic experience translated into struggles I still face today. Back in Autumn of 2014, when I left the abusive group I was a part of for 21 years, I didn’t have tools or support really. I shut down emotionally and mentally. I lost myself and fell into a dark depression that lasted 3 years without any relief. I started seeing improvement after connecting with other survivors. Then, I started to join the rest of the world. I started advocating, researching, and offering help to those that I could. In 2019, when I called out my past church for harboring an alleged abuser, I decided to step away in many ways and focus on myself after that negative response. Experiencing betrayal after betrayal by friends and family was my cue I needed to focus on my recovery. Within a year, I started building for my future. I sought out joy, took care of myself, created my support system, and sociali...

  I grew up convinced I wasn’t going to be able to make anything of myself. I was taught I was unworthy, worthless, and that I wasn’t even ordinary. I wanted nothing more than to make my parents proud, carve out my own path and convince myself I was a somebody. I realized I wasn’t just a somebody, I’m me. And that’s a good thing. If you would have asked me ten years ago where I would see myself today, you’d get an answer of a Baptist wife, mother and hopefully using my love for piano to make music or even teach a Sunday school class. I remember when that last one became impossible after I made waves in my past church. I wanted so much to be considered as a candidate to teach young teens and specifically wanted to focus on their self-worth, but that never happened. Now, I look back and am glad, because I would’ve encouraged rebellion in the ranks (you can laugh here; I am). Teaching others while my journey was just beginning and heading in a different direction, nonetheless, wou...

  I believed every story the preacher man told me, even the gruesome details he spewed with vengeance in his voice and the spit that left his mouth. I took every warning so seriously, could feel the life leave my body as he warned of touching the Holy Scriptures with dirty hands. For weeks afterwards, I would examine my little hands for even the faintest of dirtiness, worried I’d disrespect God and endure his wrath, even to the point of death. That is just one of many examples of how literal I was as a child taught to believe things incredibly literally. I can’t explain how much that literalism damaged my mental health till this day or the impact it has had on me understanding people as an adult. I joke that I’m just a literal person, but the truth is I was told to take things so seriously or I could face eternal consequences. A child’s mind is very impressionable. They are molded by the adults in their life. Their view of the world is crafted by what they are told, what they w...