Every now and then I have these moments where I become all-consumed to learn about how much PTSD has cost me in my life. Not long ago, weeks after a former-boss that had been horrifying toxic to me and so many other people finally left the company, I had a brief moment where I suddenly felt the urge to sob as I realized how many years of just... freely being myself.... I had lost from that.
It only came out after I'd spent a lot of time stepping out of my comfort zone to reclaim visibility I'd lost... and feeling flooded by the sudden emotions that came with being accepted widely by many different people, just by showing up vulnerably as myself. It felt safe. And safe felt scary.
I'd end meetings saying, "I'm sorry, y'all, I'm a mess," and notice a sort of sympathetic kindness under it all that I hadn't felt in longer than I could remember. And it was only because I was showing up as my full, unadulterated self: a version of me that I have never felt was acceptable to be.
And while that felt good, it made me feel so angry. I felt a sudden flood of grief for every moment I was afraid to speak up at fear of what speaking up would cost me. Every moment I feared being erased or existentially annihilated. I feared being spoken about negatively in rooms I'd been uninvited from, without any chance to defend myself.
And those weren't new wounds for me. They were ancient wounds.
But I felt this as such. Felt the alive part of me, its energy, coarsing powerfully around these dull invisible frozen scars that cover my body, from the countless times over decades that I've been cut deep and incapacitated from fighting back.
Feeling it feels good. But feeling it means feeling the pain too as the tundra of scars starts to thaw.