TW: SA, CSA
When I was a child, my brain did an incredible thing: it built walls. Tucked away behind it were horrible memories, feelings, sensations -anything that was too heavy for a little body to carry. It wasn't ‘erasing’. It was surviving. But even when the mind hides pain, the body will scream out its story.
Growing up, I didn't understand my desperate hunger for validation. My abuser was someone close to me, so my nervous system wove attention, safety and worthiness. into a tangled mess. Love and abuse became confused.
At the same time, I was growing up autistic in a world that constantly told girls that being desirable to men determined their value. Movies, magazines, music videos -it all reinforced the message that attention meant worth. My nervous system grabbed onto that story because it fit the wound I already had. I soaked it up like a sponge.
Fawning and dissociation were my modus operandi. I have so many memories from the corner of the room. My body was not a safe place to be. So I would leave it. I floated above, completely & mindlessly driven by the need to be loved. Dissociation protected me when I was five, but when I was twenty-five: it would put me in danger.
Again and again I found myself in situations that crossed boundaries. I wasn't choosing in the way you might imagine choice. The craving for attention felt as essential as the need for food. My nervous system was narrowed in on pursuing what it believed I needed in order to survive. The shame of repeating patterns was bottomless and I never felt satiated. I just kept feeling worse & worse.
Eventually, in 2017 at twenty-eight years old, everything fell apart. The walls my brain had built couldn't hold everything back anymore. They collapsed, taking my life down with it. I had a complete nervous breakdown. Sleep paralysis had me frozen in decades old memories. And when I’d snap out of it I’d look around: no job, no car, a pile of clothes at the end of the bed, and just one pair of borrowed shoes. It felt like my life was ending (and it very nearly did), but now I understand it to be the beginning.
Recovery wasn't quick. It wasn't one breakthrough therapy session or a medication script. It took years. There were setbacks. At times I thought I had dug to the foundation only to realise there was another layer underneath. It was a wayward spiral. In moments of reprieve I came back to the same themes and values with a little more capacity, skilfulness and functional understanding each time.
One of the biggest changes has been learning to stay in my body. Guided meditation became one of the first places I could safely practise being present. Instead of floating away, I could notice my breath. Feel my feet. Feel the support underneath me. Little by little, my body stopped feeling like a place I needed to escape from.
I’m not driven by that desperate need for validation anymore. Trauma no longer runs my life. I don't mistake being wanted for being loved. I don't confuse intensity with intimacy. I don't need to abandon myself to feel close to someone else. I discovered something I never thought was possible: I can actually live according to my values instead of my survival responses.
The greatest freedom I've found is becoming present. Because when I'm present in my body, I can actually hear myself. And when I can hear myself, I can choose.
