This Ornament Is a Powerful Reminder of Both My Trauma and Healing

The Christmas tree is one of the first and most beloved symbols of the burgeoning holiday season. And the Christmas ornament is perhaps what makes a tree so special. It acts as a physical representation of the passage of time. A proverbial time machine marking who, what, when, where, why, and how that ornament came into our lives. As we carefully place each ornament upon our Christmas tree, memories flood back to us, transporting us to that very moment… and this act can be incredibly powerful.

• What is PTSD?

This holiday season as I unearthed my tree and began carefully placing ornaments upon its delicate branches, I came upon an orange blown glass orb the size of a softball. A wave of emotions hit me. The ornament first made its way into my life in 2015. A guest of our bed and breakfast gave it to me as a thank you for our hospitality. She had made it herself and I thought it was a delightfully generous gesture. I proudly displayed the ornament on our tree, a symbol of the fact I love my job and find great pleasure in making others feel cared for.

Fast-forward to 2016. Through circumstances that are far too convoluted to outline here, this woman became my therapist. In a rural community with very few therapists, a dual relationship is virtually unavoidable. I had no reason to question her motives and, in fact, knowing I liked her enabled me to trust her quickly, forging an extremely strong therapeutic alliance very rapidly. Within that first year with her as my therapist, I began recalling memories of childhood sexual abuse and was finally able to label my relationship with my mother as enmeshed and parentified. Both of these established a dynamic of intense attachment with my now therapist, which would eventually end up backfiring royally.

However, initially, the fondness I had for my therapist translated to an affection for that beautiful ornament she had given me just a year before. That Christmas and for every Christmas the next four years, I’d unearth the ornament and be reminded of how lucky I was to have such a great therapist to guide me through my trauma healing journey. The ornament, like her presence in my life, gave me a sense of security and consistency that combatted the lack of safety I felt as a child. Or so I thought.

If you’ve read any of my previous articles about the dissolution of my relationship with this therapist, you will already know that things didn’t end well. The kind, generous human I had met in 2015 had devolved into a manipulative, toxic, unethical clinician who used my vulnerability against me to gaslight me and trap me into a trauma bond. By the end of 2020, I had had enough of feeling like a “bad patient, a pain in the ass, a failure and like I didn’t matter.” My self-worth had been tanked and my sense of security reduced to nothing. I had had enough and made the extremely painful decision to fire my therapist. I knew doing so would mean the end of any kind of relationship with this woman… professional, personal or therapeutic. But I couldn’t take it anymore.

I have spent the better part of 2021 in therapy processing how I could have allowed this dysfunctional relationship to last as long as I did. I had to sort through intense grief, shame, loss, resentment, and anger. I had to regain my footing and my sense of self-worth. And, most importantly, I had to rediscover I do matter to the right people and my being cared for isn’t contingent upon my being or doing anything other than being myself.

So, when I came upon that ornament this year, I hesitated to put it on my tree. I wasn’t sure if I could tolerate the amount of pain I felt when I initially set eyes on it. But then, something within me shifted. I saw it glisten and sparkle against the lights of the tree and I felt a wave of hope fill my belly. I’ve come so far this year through my own tenacity, hard work, and courage. I have grown through what happened with my ex-therapist and learned I am so much more than what happened to me, not just with her but with all of the trauma I have endured. I know none of it was my fault and I can take control back from my abusers.

So, I hung that ornament on my tree, a powerful reminder of my continuing progress along my healing journey, a testament to the fire of survival that burns within me — shining just as brightly as the lights adorning my Christmas tree… like a phoenix rising from the ashes.