How I’m Learning To Come Out from Chronic Self-isolation and Loneliness as a Trauma Survivor 🤍
As a person who’s finding herself in the early stages of a healing journey, I scramble through the cycles of ego deaths, then the shame, guilt, and fear of the unknown- of stepping into and discovering what lays outside of this perceived, performative, armored shell of a person I thought should be for the world.
And inside all of that, I kept the essence of my inherent self, hidden and protected from the evils of the world. Suppressed from my conscious and lurking in my subconscious. I am no one, I told myself. Or so I believed, so I was taught. So nobody needed to see me, nor want to hear me. If I dared to step out and tell my story, my voice would eventually drown in a sea of people who were tenfold more worthy and lovable than myself, so why would it matter. No echoes, nobody to hold a space for me. No nothing; like myself. Do I even feel safe sharing my truth?
When I started to discover what lay beneath this shame when grieving what was lost, what didn’t happen and the deep loneliness and emptiness that comes with it, I realized how I expected the world and its people to treat me like how I felt about myself. And so I chose to hide from the world. I didn’t know myself and I solely believed that my inside world matched the outside world. There was no silver lining there to grasp the nuances of life itself. It was all about survival and keeping safe from an evil world that holds people with evil intentions.
This is a part of how I carried this identity for so long, of being the invincible and unlovable, heartbroken person and the distorted perceptions that came with it. An identity formed by the unshakeable, protective coping mechanisms from the severe abuse I endured all my life so well.
The surviving self, which I taught was who I was, who I am. And I carry this identity well to this day, as this part of me still serves an important purpose of keeping me safe, and there is a space for that part.
The only difference is — now that I’m healing and slowly but steadily building up my self-trust and confidence, I am learning how to find and hold a safe space for my feelings and emotions within myself, and the parts of my identity that carries those feelings into IFS therapy. I am learning to show myself empathy, by allowing myself to feel, grieve and soothe myself through the walls of waves that come once I open up the floodgates. By providing myself an anchor to hold onto and let the storm pass instead of letting it wash me away into a prolonged dissociative, shattered, and disorganized state.
So what does this have anything to do with learning how to step out from self-isolation and loneliness?
The healing process, at least for me, has taught me that the trauma forces me to live for myself, isolated — through survival. Living in survival mode is so all-encompassing, soul-shattering, and paralyzing to the point that we cannot perceive the nuances of life. Once we get stuck there, all you can see is your pain. What’s worse, you start to normalize and suppress it.
That’s when we also risk, at least in my experience, that we gradually stop perceiving other people beyond those who traumatized us. And in a sense, you just don’t know the world beyond that.
I cannot see any other deeply tragic, heart-wrecking story than when an individual, human or not, stops trusting life itself.
This is that journey out from that living hell does to some extent, it starts within when you hold a safe space inside yourself — that’s when you slowly learn how to hold a safe space for others. You eventually include them into that kind of warmth and empathy you feel for the hurt parts of yourself, into a safe, trusting moment where you both share it.
That’s how I hope we create connective, trusting relationships where we dare share ourselves and our truth with others. And as a result, we slowly find ourselves stepping out of isolation, out of the sufferings of “self-preservation” and instead into our true values and the renowned trust we have for ourselves and others who mirrors it back.
And this concludes my recent realization. Now I’ve started taking some initiative to make life happen for me, instead of waiting for life to find me.
I’ve started inviting people who I know are healthy for me to do the activities that provide me the most happiness. I’ve started inviting people into my safe space. There’s no longer a strong instinct to self-isolate, no longer just me, myself, my pain — and the abyss. I feel I have value, and I can share it.
I am only at the start of this, 2 years in on a life-long journey, and I feel a mix of fear, curiosity, and excitement going into the deepest, darkest depths. It’s probably a sense of hope that I haven’t felt in a long time 🌹
I hope anyone who reads this found some value in it — and if you did, this is your sign to share your thoughts and experience with the world. It needs more healing voices to be heard 🤍
