Post-Trauma: An Identity Under Construction

Geraldine Biliran
Aug 25, 2017 · 5 min read

My internal monologue after coping through a PTSD flashback: No one will ever truly know the depth of what you survived — just that you did. You pieced yourself together atop a would’ve-been grave. And though the grass is green, and life is now this vibrant, colorful jigsaw puzzle — you are still that center jigsaw piece. The one whose cardboard frame interlocks into the larger image, but whose small part of the bigger picture has been peeled away by the wear and tear of trauma.

Trauma alters brain function, says the research. It creates this pathway for psychopathology to take root or exacerbate. Often times, “PTSD jeopardizes the capacity to function effectively at work, such as diminished ability to concentrate, irritability and loss of interest in work or school” (Friedman, 2012, p. 2). Such symptoms are easily camouflaged — almost impossible for anyone else to notice behind a plastered-on smile.

Poetically, trauma and major depression have altered my ability to see myself — this oddly shaped interlocking piece — as full of vitality as the surrounding puzzle pieces of my life. I still see in sepia — nothing more than a mundane monochrome that bridges this secret disconnect between my external success and that lingering internal void. Herein lies the guilt-inducing paradox of the high-functioning depressed: how dare I feel disconnected when I fit right into this beautiful puzzle of a blessed life?


Post-trauma: I am an identity under construction.

This is where I must allow myself grace. I must accept that while my insides are as fragile as the feeling of flimsy cardboard, feelings aren’t facts. I am not weak. Far from, in fact, because facing and embracing vulnerability takes a lot of courage, therefore it evidences strength. I survived something horrible — and it had me battling against the odds of a startling suicide rate. Perhaps an optimist would say that seeing through monochrome-filtered lenses is more color than I ever would’ve seen buried six feet under.

“Embracing your light doesn’t mean ignoring your dark,” says Kevin Breel in his TED Talk Confessions of a Depressed Comic. Survival makes me one of the lucky ones like Breel, but we are still hardwired for struggle. There are the nightmares. And the triggers perpetuated by loss or change — even good change. And let’s not forget the dreaded anxiety — thought tantrums that lead to crying spells and faith famines that cripple my ability to care … even about things that matter. Assimilating to this self-made safe haven has been quite the journey. “It’s a healing process. Triggers will become less and less,” says my therapist. Her words constantly ricochet against the walls of my cavernous psyche, and its echoes often have the power to drown out the depression — but not always.

“Although initially reluctant about therapy and psychotropic medication — I now have the privilege of staring at ceilings of my choosing because of it.”

“I am here. Here is better than a psych ward. I can exercise choice.” — my mantra to self when days get rough. From psych ward to studio apartment, I have definitely “struggled to survive and not to succumb” (words from Paolo Coelho’s Veronika Decides to Die)

Years-worth of emotional and sexual abuse behind closed doors by a former high school teacher led to my most serious suicide attempt in 2014. This prompted a psych ward visit where I was placed in seclusion. Nothing but a mattress, a boarded up window, and padded walls that ultimately made me realize how staring at that psych ward ceiling could not be my life’s calling. After that week-long visit, I knew I had to get out. And I realized that being discharged meant putting in the emotional work on my part to stay out of a psych ward. Although initially reluctant about therapy and psychotropic medication — I now have the privilege of staring at ceilings of my choosing because of it. And giving myself that opportunity to breathe and stare at how far I’ve come is exactly what allowing myself grace means.


Project Semicolon: “a semicolon is used when an author could’ve chosen to end their sentence, but chose not to. The author is you and the sentence is your life.” RIP Project Semi-Colon founder Amy Bleuel. We lost you to suicide but know that a fire burns in my soul to help others the way you’ve helped me.

If anyone were to ask me how I managed to save my life and uncover meaning along the way, I’d probably tell them to imagine the strength it would take for a person to climb Mt. Everest with only a flimsy, cardboard box to protect herself. Sounds impossible, but that’s been me and my soul in a three-year trek with therapy, antidepressants, benzos and the like. Somehow I shifted perspective after the gut-wrenching EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy — where the truth behind hard memories hit me like ten thousand avalanches, and I was forced to dig myself out of the snow and reorient after healing from those truth concussions. My cardboard psyche sure took heavy hits along the way, but after letting go of self-mutilation, alcohol, and other addictive habits for real, amid that mountain emerged a tired but stronger puzzle piece — whatever could be salvaged from the rest of the cardboard. Hence, the puzzle piece metaphor. The essence of me.

I don’t think I’m quite near the top of Mt. Everest just yet — but getting to the vantage point where I currently stand took being real with my irrational thoughts and reconciling those beliefs with positive practice. When it became so easy to fall back into misalignment, I desperately latched on to the other pieces of my NEW life’s puzzle — my work with special needs kids, my master’s program, the positive influences of my mentor, therapist, colleagues, friends — especially at those moments where I was exhausted around my edges and could barely get a grip, I held on somehow. That’s taken a lot more strength and courage than I ever knew I could muster up on an empty oxygen tank labeled “faith.” And perhaps that’s what makes me a suicide survivor … I held on when my depression encouraged and enticed me otherwise. And even when I couldn’t hold on, I realize now that it was the other pieces of my life that held onto me.

I am a former 9th-grade English teacher and soon-to-be school psychologist. I was once silenced by a stigma but now desire to help children who have been abused, who are alone in the darkness of mental illness and know no other way to cope except by self-harm or seeking shelter in drug and alcohol addiction. I long to be their light because I remember exactly what it was like.

Speaking openly about my struggles has been my first step of reconnection to this new life I created for myself. While each day is a battle, these are the statements that add color to the essence of my puzzle piece, regardless of its peeled-away facade: I am worthy. I deserve connection. And despite my mental illness, my life is a beautiful, vibrant jigsaw puzzle.

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Geraldine Biliran

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Torrential thought tantrums needing a soft place to land.

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