The Trauma That Built Me
How can the most horrific encounter become a blessing in disguise?
You never think that something as awful as mental, emotional and physical abuse would ever be the helping hand that saves you, do you? I mean, why on earth would someone who continuously gaslighted, manipulated and threatened me, be the reason that aided me in overcoming my worst fears?
It’s excruciatingly difficult to mentally try to comprehend the reason as to why certain horrific occurrences have to happen in your life; you spend hours, days, weeks and months beating yourself up, filling yourself up with anger, just to be able to come to terms with the reality of what is.
I spent a year struggling to apprehend how a human being is capable of such volatile acts, and why the recipient of those actions had to be me — yes, I know, self-victimisation is not the way to go about it, but as you can tell I wasn’t really in the correct state of mind. The more time I spent glaring at the painful scar on my wrist, the more I felt this dark sense of shame and embarrassment.
Was that me? Why did I allow her to control me like that? What was I thinking? I thought I was so smart and strong, why couldn’t I see straight? Why didn’t I get myself out quicker? What took over me?
When you spend most of your life believing that you are strong, without realising that you were running away from certain unconscious negative thoughts, that you so willingly decided to bury in dirt at the back of your mind, you then realise how someone — regardless of how confident and strong you thought you were — can analyse and breakdown your every action and thought process to be able to manipulate and control you.
The harsh reality is that abusers know how to prey and whom to prey on; they smell every scent of vulnerability, every aura of weakness, and every essence of low self-esteem — even if you spend years fooling others and covering your tracks, you can never fool your huntsman.
2017: the year that will forever haunt me.
I spent a year abroad, thinking that it will be a way for me to begin something new with brighter horizons — boy, did I have a way to fool myself over and over again. Whatever delusional attempt I had been trying to accomplish wasn’t what my life had planned for me; lets just say that it was a complete 180 degree flip, to say the least.
I randomly befriended this girl at a party I went to, with friends, during my stay abroad. Initially, I wasn’t too keen on meeting up and allowing the friendship to blossom, with the exception of little old naïve me having this tendency to be nice to anyone who is “nice” towards me — I know right? In what bubble was I living in?
Fast Forward 4 months….
The girl began to contact me continuously; she would ask how I am, how I’m getting along, and whether or not I needed any help. This continued on until she somehow paved her way into my life. At the time I was living by myself and working freelance, but she persuaded me into becoming flatmates with her and working alongside her at her place of business.
In the beginning, all was amazing; she created this clever illusion of lies that convinced all those around her that her life was exactly what she said it to be — she would go as far as to create skilful certificates and forms and make people lie on her behalf, to be able to really sell the vision she was painting. You see, when you are gullible and credulous, you never come to terms with the fact that people in this world are not like you, and just because they may seem “lovely” doesn’t mean to say that their intentions are.
She was very quick-witted; which is what you need to be when you are gaslighting your prey. She would spend weeks being kind, generous, and caring to construct a contract of trust; and with that trust came me as an open book, telling all there was to know about me. In this way, I allowed her to analyse my vulnerabilities, my weaknesses, my fears and where I lacked in confidence. I gave her all the coding she desired to be able to programme a software into my head that enabled her to input the torment needed to make me doubt myself.
To put it quite simply, I was being buttered up for the grand finale.
August 2017: When I lost myself
You never really anticipate, that in all your life, a life that you spent being as honest as you could be, as kind as you could be and as gentle as you could be, you would meet a psychotic human that had a degree in abuse and gaslighting.
As some details might trigger those who have experienced such awful accounts, I’ll try my best to keep it short and precise.
For the reasons that I may never know, and never understand, out of fear and the anxiety that was implanted within me through constant horrific threats, I did as she said and allowed her to physically, emotionally, and mentally abuse me in every possible way; all to say that with every verbal abuse I received, the more I was stripped of my innocence and of my dignity. I was displayed to look as though I was crazy. If I dared to seek help or tell someone what was happening, I was threatened with things that only further imbedded fear in my constant state of anxiety; threats that I believed as a consequence of the scare and illusion that was submerged into my unconscious. I was left with no friends and nobody to help me, as she cunningly indoctrinated my mind to believe everyone was against me while she was my “only true friend”.
With every physical abuse I lost a bit of myself, in every verbal attack I hated myself, and beside every manipulative threat I felt helpless and terrified.
It took an expensive loss for me to able to break free from the lies that were holding me captive as her prey.
It took me 2 years to be able to accept what had happened to me. I spent a year in resentment and anger, waking up every night in fright, in panic and with sheer anxiety. Any smell, any tone, any word and any name that reminded me of her would trigger me in all the wrong ways.
I kept asking myself, why? Why did I have to endure that? Why did that have to happen to me? Why did I have to experience such a horrific encounter? Where did I go wrong to deserve that?
After a year of self-victimisation, I finally had enough and began the journey of finding myself again. I began painting, listening to self-help podcasts, meditating and focusing more on what I could do to make myself feel better. It was somewhere along the way, that I woke up one day and realised how much I had changed from the person I once was many years ago. I became more empathetic, more aware of myself, of who I am, more confident in my capabilities and more trusting of my beautiful intuition. I don’t know where I had lost myself, but I knew now that I was reborn.
You see… sometimes the most hideous experiences are the most valuable in life. Had I not have experienced that, perhaps I would have still been the little naïve, lost girl I once was; so desperately trying to please others, and as a result only hurting myself.
That experience never broke me — it moulded me; it put me under immense pressure only to pull me towards myself. I now know of my true potential and had that never have happened to me, I wouldn’t be who I am today.
Thank you trauma for building me.
