How I’m Using a Different Kind of ‘Top 9’ to Continue My Trauma Recovery This New Year

Every time a new year rolls around, social media starts offering us a chance to see our most liked posts, whether through the top nine on Instagram or Facebook’s Year in Review. This year, I opted not to post those because what’s meaningful and resonates with me holds more value than the number of likes a post gets. While there may be overlap, I really wanted to send a message to myself that I matter, not how much approval a post gets. And I’m not saying anything is wrong with using and posting your top nine; it’s really fun and I’ve definitely done it in the past. This year, however, it just didn’t feel right for me.

• What is PTSD?

With a new year, a lot of people make resolutions, wishes and set defined goals. Often, many of these are quite harsh and punishing with no room for error. Think of all the people who go on diets and push themselves at the gym every time a new year rolls around because our culture and the diet industry shames people and tells them they need to look a certain way. This is no way to begin a year: fueled by self-loathing. What would it be like to enter the new year being gentle and kind to ourselves and one another? How much more good might unfold if we all took a less harsh approach to moving through the world?

With that in mind, here’s a different sort of top nine: my own reflections on what to let go of, what to take with me and what to have intentions toward as I step into a new year and continue on my healing path.

Three things to let go of:

1. Shame

As a trauma survivor, shame runs through my veins and fills the air I breathe; it makes my body feel heavy and tired, like I’m moving through sludge. Shame isolates me and keeps me stuck, takes me away from myself and tells me I am unworthy of love or care. The tightly woven shroud of shame slows down the recovery process but more than that, it embeds itself in the mind, body and soul and steals moments, opportunities and time from you. I’ve been setting shame aside more lately and every time it lifts, I feel stronger and more myself. I know shame might still pop up going forward but I’ll recognize it from now on, gently ask it why it’s here and let it know I don’t need it to work so hard, that I’ll be OK without its covering. Shame may have served a purpose once, but it doesn’t any longer.

2. Any last remnants of eating disorder behaviors.

It has been almost three years since I left treatment for an eating disorder for the last time, and since then there has been steady progress. I’ve remained stable at a healthy weight, continued to challenge myself around food, eased up on exercise and in general, I’m practicing much better self-care. Some people might even call me recovered but I don’t feel I’m there yet. In the new year, I will pay attention to my behaviors and thoughts around food, exercise and my body, and free myself from anything holding me back from being fully recovered.

3. Suffering.

You might think this is an easy one to let go of, or even wonder why suffering is something anyone would hang onto, but like shame, suffering hangs on tightly to anyone with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD). Suffering becomes a maladaptive way to self-regulate. If I’m suffering and if I feel enough fear, I will eventually grow calm. If I’m suffering, it means I’m still alive. If I’m suffering, my thoughts, feelings and experiences are valid. See all the associations that are made? They may seem odd but in someone who has survived trauma, they make a lot of sense. The trouble is suffering and a constant loop of crisis and chaos keeps me stuck. It doesn’t move my recovery ahead.

In the new year, I want to be more mindful about how I use suffering to regulate myself and where suffering shows up so I can loosen its grip on me. Once you’re aware of your own suffering, have skills to ease it and good enough support, suffering becomes a choice — not something you need. I can still have physical pain, intense emotions and difficult experiences but I don’t need to suffer. It’s possible to take care of myself through any kind of pain and not add to it. I want to understand and appreciate the role of suffering but also continue to learn new skills and give myself room to grow without being on the short leash of suffering.

Three things to be grateful for that I want to hang onto and grow:

1. My worth and resilience.

I often lament that I’m not enough or I’m too much and that I don’t do enough of value. I constantly put down my worth as a human being while simultaneously ignoring my resilience. In the past year or so, I’ve caught glimmers of my self-worth and have been able to hold that close for longer stretches of time. Sometimes, I even see that I do have a positive impact, maybe not to the degree I hope to one day have but it’s still there, regardless. And I have to remind myself that my self-worth is not connected to anything I say or do or how I look or feel — that it’s valid no matter what. I have to bring myself back to a place of loving acceptance over and over. And when I feel frustrated with myself, I need to acknowledge the resilience of my body, mind and spirit because I’m still here. I plan to nurture this newfound awareness in the new year and beyond.

2. My voice, my truth.

For much of my life, I’ve been afraid to speak up. I was frequently told I was withdrawn but highly intelligent in school. People would comment that they were waiting for me “to come out of my shell,” or that I was “too quiet.” At home, I always felt I was too much or too little, too loud or too quiet. I was always on alert because my experiences told me people weren’t consistent and that there must be something wrong with me, or I was bad in some way. For the first part of my recovery process, I barely spoke in treatment or during sessions with my therapist. I was shut down and fearful. When I did speak up, I often contradicted myself, totally unaware of the different parts within me that I dissociated from to survive. But in the last three years — in particular, this most recent one — I’ve been finding my voice and using it. Visual art and writing were always part of my process but now, I’m sometimes able to speak directly and in person about what’s going on with me, and share my experiences without hiding and fearing backlash. I’m a better advocate for myself and for others, I hope. I plan to keep welcoming and getting to know parts of myself, continue to use my voice and speak my truth for good.

3. Stable connections, belonging and stability in general.

Part of having a trauma history (or trauma responses) is feeling like no one can be fully trusted and fearing abandonment, rejection and conflict. I’m starting to feel (not just logically know) that the people who I have in my life aren’t going anywhere; they won’t cast me aside like a dirty rag, and I’m welcome to be me. I’ve experienced ruptures and repairs multiple times this year in therapeutic relationships, and I’m learning that people can still care about me even when we have disagreements. I can see that I’m capable of bringing good people into my life and nurturing those relationships and that I have the capacity to make more meaningful connections. I’ve been in the same full-time job for almost eight years now and have lived in the same apartment for the same amount of time. I’m just now settling in because I think, before, I believed at any second I’d be homeless, jobless and without support, completely alone and without resources. That may have been true when I was in an abusive situation, but I’m not there anymore.

Three things to have intentions on and keep working toward:

1. Sharing, helping and giving back.

I get frustrated with myself that I’m doing more of what I feel passionate about, but I’m not helping people who are struggling more. I want to be able to give back. I’m so grateful for all the love, support, guidance and care I’ve had and continue to have throughout my recovery journey, and I want to be able to do the same for other people. But, I need to acknowledge I’m still working through this process myself and I can’t do as much as I may want to just yet. That doesn’t mean I can’t do anything, though. I want to continue sharing my experiences and what I’m learning, writing and reading. I want to continue lending support to people while maintaining healthy boundaries. I want to keep reaching out.

In the new year, I’m organizing a workshop on trauma at the place I work, which is something I felt strongly about doing for a while and I’m grateful to have the opportunity now. Who knows what other experiences and opportunities may be on the horizon? I want to stay open to all of them and help as much as I reasonably can while still tending my own recovery process.

2. Wholeness.

As someone with dissociative identity disorder (DID) and therefore unintegrated parts of self, it may seem strange to have wholeness as an intention; some people might even think it’s not possible. When I talk about wholeness, though, I don’t necessarily mean integration of all parts. My intention is to truly feel the sense of wholeness that comes from knowing and accepting all parts of oneself and in my case, that also means the parts that remain hidden from me and that I as of yet don’t share consciousness with. I believe that when all parts of me are seen, heard, understood and accepted, my entire system will feel whole and at peace, integration or no integration. I want to feel the wholeness in my body. I think of it as a coming home to a safe and loving home type of feeling.

3. Love.

A year ago, I wouldn’t have dared to write that I have an intention of having more love in my life. To be honest, it scares parts of me to write that. Love has been a complex experience and feeling in my life, often over-coupled with experiences and feelings the very opposite of it, such as fear. I’m not out there searching for love and I’m not actively looking for a romantic relationship (i.e., I’m unlikely to join some dating app any time soon). I’m just seeing if I can allow myself to be more open to the idea of love and fully appreciating all the kinds of nurturing love there are, for example, love in friendships, therapeutic alliances, work I feel passionate about and so much more.

For a long time, I’ve been really missing having a pet, but after a lot of distress and heartache surrounding the last bunny I adopted, I’ve been unable to allow myself to adopt again. The fear of potentially experiencing a loved one sick or having them die has kept me from experiencing the joy of having a pet again. Not only that, but I started to doubt my capacity to be a good caregiver because living in a perpetual state of exhaustion and fear erodes at my reality. Logically, I know I’m a good caregiver, but a worried, self-critical part fills my head with what-ifs sometimes: “What if you get sick? What if you need to go back to treatment? What if we have to move?” Etc.

Life is uncertain and I want to start trusting I can roll with the uncertainty, that I don’t need to deprive myself of loving experiences, including having a pet. And lately, in therapy, I’ve been talking through the intense emotional reactions I have to knowing I won’t/can’t have biological children. Trauma has stolen much from me, including time, trust and security, and I have yet to feel safe in my body. It has kept me out of relationships, including a healthy one with myself.  All of that, on top of health issues (some possibly stemming from past eating disorder behavior but others not) means I won’t be having biological children. Growing up, I believe there was a point where I dreamed of having my own family, but as much of my life has been spent fighting to keep going, those dreams faded.

But I’m learning that I can have a family (or families) in other ways and I can even have children in other ways. Don’t get me wrong: it still hurts and I’ve spent a lot of time crying at what I feel I’ve lost and what was taken from me, but I also don’t hold any blame and I do accept where things are now. I’m grateful to be an aunt to a friend’s little girl and to witness the magic of her growing and discovering herself and the world around her. I feel blessed to see her nurtured in a loving and supportive home and to feel a part of my friend’s extended family.

I guess what I’m saying is that love exists in many forms and there are many types of families. I don’t want to close myself off to those based on some societal ideal of what that all looks like. Love is love.

Sending lots of love, light and peace to everyone for the new year and beyond!