Confidence Despite Trauma
Before you read any further, please know that this blog post contains topic matter that may be upsetting to some. Abuse and other childhood trauma are key parts to this blog, so please take care while reading.
If you or someone you know are being abused, please call 1.800.799.SAFE (7233) for domestic abuse or 1.800.4-A-CHILD (22.4453) for child abuse.
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Fifth grade gym class.
Practicing for the fifth grade Olympics, forced to try each event to determine in which we wanted to “compete”.
I was wearing an oversized pink sweatshirt. That much I can tell you. Whatever I could do to hide the fact that I was developing way ahead of schedule!
As I flew over the high jump bar, that pink sweatshirt flew up above my head, exposing my breasts for all to see.
The boys, one in particular, called me “Nippleipisie” from that day on, all throughout high school. Boys who didn’t even go to elementary school with us heard the story and the nickname and chose to use it themselves, even giving themselves permission to give me “titty twisters” as I walked through the hall.
No wonder I skipped so much high school.
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Home.
Mother’s husband would snap my bra strap and tease me about not needing it, sometimes even giving me the “titty twisters” and “tickling” until I cried enough to annoy him.
Porn on the tv in the living room when mom wasn’t home. Slow to turn it off when I walked into the room.
Talking to me about his version of “the birds and the bees” because my father wasn’t around to do it.
Jokes about getting my period, kissing boys, and fucking my mom.
Hugs turned into longer hugs with roaming hands.
Night-time visits.
“It never happened.”
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I think I knew on some level that a lot of this was wrong and shouldn’t be happening, but I also knew that my mother was in a bad place. She had been in and out of the hospital for severe depression and what I’m sure were suicide attempts. But at some point, I mentioned a particular instance to her and she slapped me across the face.
She accused me of “flirting” with her husband. Told me I was a liar. Locked herself in her room for the rest of the night and wouldn’t talk to me for days.
Although she had witnessed him beating the shit out of me several times, and he was not allowed to see his daughter from his first marriage because of “accusations”, that day I was labeled as the problem child.
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Eighth grade, our local mall.
I met an 18-year-old man who bought me cigarettes, and naturally, it was love at first sight. For me.
Long story short, we “dated” for a few months, which consisted of me lying about being sick so I could stay home from school. I’d say I was going to be at a friend’s house and would instead take the bus to his apartment, once in a while even being able to sleep over.
No one knew, but my mother’s husband had tapped the phone line. He recorded every conversation I had and listened to them nightly.
He heard conversations with my friends, my grandmother, and the boyfriend.
Once he had enough evidence of a relationship, I came home to an enraged set of adults. I was called a slut, a whore, a liar, and so on. The couch was thrown at me as I tried to leave, pushing me into a wall. As he held me down and beat me, my mother stood over me and told me I deserved all of it.
I missed 3 days of school because I could barely walk and honestly, my face had taken a lot of it this time. He usually stayed away from my face, but every once in a while his rage would get the best of him and he’d forget.
On day 4 I went back to school and as soon as my group of friends saw my face, they went to the guidance counselor to report it. They reported it to the police, and then I was being pulled out of class to talk with a detective. I told them everything. The physical abuse, the sexual, the mental. They took lots of notes, pictures of my face & my bruises, and said they’d be talking to the parents.
And then it was silent.
No one talked that evening. I went to bed wondering what was going to happen.
The next day the guidance counselor pulled me out of class again and into his office. The detective was on the phone.
“Kerri, you are a juvenile delinquent. You need to learn to respect and obey your father and had you not made him so angry, this wouldn’t have happened.”
I asked him about the other “stuff”.
It was then that the detective said “your mother says that you flirt with her husband. Is that true?”
Of course, it wasn’t.
“I strongly suggest that you just watch the way you speak to him from now on.”
And that was that.
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A few days after that I was asked to leave their home.
PERFECT.
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These are just a few moments in my life that have affected my ability to build confidence in who I am, what I believe, what I stand for, and what I DESERVE.
As we all know, my decision-making skills from then on were not…great. As an adult, I continued to make shitty decisions after shitty decisions. I’d spend far more time bitching about my situation than I spent actually trying to correct it, but if I’m being completely honest…bitching about it was FAR more comfortable than changing. I knew how to bitch and complain; the poor single mom was struggling and couldn’t catch a break, right?
I didn’t have the confidence to even know where to start improving my situation. I had never been taught to trust in myself, my family, or even the world. Hell, I’d even been taught that I was too dumb to ever be able to make good decisions, so why bother?
Raise your hand if you know your own version of this story.
We are not alone; many of us have experienced trauma in some way or another, which has affected our lives in ways we are only beginning to understand. Our confidence comes from every moment before this one; it is a combination of our childhood experiences, our culture, our socioeconomic status, our education, our beliefs, our values, and just living in our world. When we have lived through trauma of any kind, our confidence can take a major hit, sometimes feeling permanently gone. Our perception of ourselves and others can become very fear-based, negative, and one-sided. This is self-preservation, self-protection, at its core.
But when we allow that to overtake our entire thought process, our confidence to try new things, experience new events, and relationships or even explore the status of our current state dwindles. We say we lose trust in others when really, we’ve lost trust in ourselves to make the best decisions for us, to listen to our intuition. This shapes our decisions, keeping us closed off from taking just one step toward anything that feels uncomfortable, unknown, or different.
Of course, this all makes perfect sense. Often when we experience trauma, it's at the hands of someone we trusted to take care of us, to have our best needs in mind. Our bodies want to stay in homeostasis. Anything we do to jumble up our nervous system causes us to want to either run away or put up our fists. When we are asked to step outside of our comfort zone to try new things, meet new people, or change anything that we’ve become accustomed to, there is an automatic response that has been amplified by our traumatic past.
However…
If you decide that we have had enough fear, you can decide that we are going to take the steps to get out of that headspace. You can get some therapy rather than decide you’re beyond help, talk to a friend rather than avoiding all people, go for a walk instead of staying in your house for the 147th day in a row, comb your hair instead of throwing it up in a messy bun, pet a dog rather than pull your hood over your head while watching TV, eat an apple instead of a cookie, whatever it is going to take to STOP the pattern of mistrust and negativity.
One thing. That is ALL that is required. It doesn’t matter how big or small it may seem. It matters.
Because with that first step, growth is occurring. Change is happening. Neurons are firing. Endorphins are being released. Brain cells are forming.
Confidence is building.
With each step we take, confidence grows. What that dickhead years ago said or did to you starts to matter less and less…it becomes a blip on your timeline rather than the center of your storyline. It becomes the fuel that propels you forward rather than the fuel on your internal emotional fire. It helps you find your passion to help others move on and level up rather than the tar that keeps you stuck in the suck.
Do you want to know how I know?
Because I did it. I am doing it. I make a choice every day that living in fear and anger is not acceptable anymore.
It definitely didn’t happen overnight. It wasn’t like I ate an apple and pet a dog and then everything was fine.
No fucking way.
But over time, patterns change. Behaviors tweak to fit new goals, even if we haven’t formally set them. There will be periods when things feel really scary, when the world is handing you more than you want to deal with, or even when horrible things actually happen. But as your confidence grows, you will find yourself powering through those periods with a little more oomph, a little more determination, and the end result will feel a little better than the last.
YOU get to decide what happens next in your story. YOU are the author.
I promise you this: you can.
Eventually, you will learn to trust in others, to trust in yourself and your intuition. You will learn that you are capable of making decisions that are best for you, and you will also learn that when you make mistakes you are capable of getting back up and trying again. The world will seem less scary, and you’ll find yourself noticing those brightly colored birds or appreciating the sunshine just a little bit more. You’ll reach a place where you actually want to go outside for a walk, where you can feel the difference in your body when you eat fresh produce versus processed sugary snacks.
You’ll gain the confidence to live in your values, even knowing what they are. You’ll know exactly what you believe in and stand for, and you’ll know what to do when you’re put in a situation that makes your radar go off. You’ll be able to stand confidently in who the fuck you are, with zero apologies and welcoming arms for those who love and appreciate the you that’s been in there this whole time, just dying to get out and live.
I promise you this: you can.
Are you ready? Click here to get started with that first step.
