Things Left Unsaid

I have spent the last 4 months trying to get a business off the ground. I put all I could into it, but it didn’t really work out. It is just too much for one person to do. I only have the support of my two best friends and latent support from another friend.

For the past year, I have been actively facing my past. I have been to the very bottom of my suffering. But there was a turning point and I began to work my way back up through every means possible.

When the memories first came back, I wanted to kill myself. I couldn’t bear being overtaken by these awful images. But I have 3 amazing kids. No matter how much I resented having to stick around to raise them, I knew that I couldn’t die. Not yet. Not early.

So I found a distraction. I started working with beads. I started learning how to weave with them. I’ve said it before, but the only thing that got me from the cascade to my first counseling session was learning to weave. I just kept saying, “One more bead, just one more bead.”

Bead weaving was a practice of patience, but it was also a practice of mindfulness. Over the year I was learning intricate stitches, I was also learning to live in the moment. The situation at large was unbearable to think about. It threatened to take my sanity if I though about it too long. So I just didn’t think about it.

I took as many steps as I could to escape my husband and abuse. I want nothing more than to leave this life behind me and start new, somewhere else, without abuse, without him. Even if he were to heal his own trauma, I still couldn’t take him back. I realize that our relationship was only ever built on his hopes and dreams. It was never about me.

That’s just it. My life has never been about me. It has always been about trying to earn respect from people who will never respect me. To be sure, I have lost nearly my entire family through all of this. But they would never be able to see me for who I am. It is impossible to earn their respect or praise. They are too wrapped up in their own suffering to applaud my escape from it.

I haven’t talked a lot about the spiritual part of my journey. But all of this began by addressing my spirituality. It was about understanding a part of me that I had locked away in agony. Digging it up brought with it many painful things. But it was my Buddhist practice and teachers that sustained me throughout the entire mess.

It was Flying Fish who taught me to control the energy around me. It was Fish who gave me Shantideva, the key to it all for me. It was Fish who first believed in me and saw me for who I was. Though we parted ways when she moved out of state, I am very aware that without her guidance, I would never have stuck to my practice. She understood me in a way I couldn’t understand myself. It was she that helped me see that my family would never respect me.

It was Fish that led me to my current teacher, Myo On. Myo On taught me how to handle my life. She helped me see that it wasn’t about what I wanted, it was about what I needed. It wasn’t about where I was headed, it was about where I was right now. She helped me see that though this path has been gut wrenchingly difficult to fathom, it was what I had to go through to become the me I was always meant to be.

Myo On gave me the freedom to face my trauma as I saw fit. She didn’t judge me, she didn’t ask me to do it her way. She just said, “how can I support you?” That was huge. That was all I needed to hear. I just needed to know that someone out there still wanted to support me.

And though I lost the ability to sit in meditative silence in the very midst of all of my trauma, it was Myo On that helped me understand that it wasn’t necessary right then. My practice was to get through this trauma, however that went. Mindfulness was my practice now, until I could sit in peace again. Until the flashbacks abated.

My counselor, Ann, was not like any counselor I thought I would ever find. She saw in me the ability to get to the other side of this mess. She believed in me, she supported me when no one else could. She is the one that told me about all of the trauma books that I’ve read and consulted, the same books I’ve used to try to help others understand what unresolved trauma feels like, so that they could recognize it in themselves.

Ann supported me as I learned to dance. She helped me understand that when I got disoriented, that was me coming back to my body. Had I been able to continue the private lessons, dance would have been the key for me. But I was troubled by dancing with other men. There were a few of them that were lecherous. It made me uncomfortable. Though I love dance, I know that it’s not something I can do with multiple partners. At least not yet.

It was Ann that led me to the documentary “Heal” (on Netflix). I don’t like television and I’ve lost interest in movies, so I didn’t want to watch it. But I’m glad I did. It was transformative in many ways. It was significant that I watched it when I did, because it changed things for me in a big way.

First and foremost, it was very validating for me to watch. I cried and cried the whole time I watched it. I released a lot of trauma, watching it. But it also reminded me of another piece of my research I hadn’t even touched on yet - energy.

I’m talking about the energy behind all of us, the energy that is in the universe everywhere, the energy that makes us what we are. The first thing I realized was that I had God all wrong. I thought God was what everyone said it was. But all of a sudden I knew God for who it was. That God was all of us, that God was the energy that surrounded us and the energy that guided us all through our human lives.

The next thing that I did was seek out an energy healer. I had read about energy healing before, it was on my list of things to study more deeply. But now I felt strongly that I needed help from a different source. I needed to understand this side of life.

It was so profound, finding Caprina, meeting her, being healed, and her guidance afterward. I am immensely grateful for the gift she shared with me. Helping me to be all of me and putting me firmly on my path was the key to getting to the end of my trauma.

In the past month, since I was healed, every relationship in my life was tested. Very few passed the test. Very few will be here with me, now, on the other side. The strange thing was, it was the people that I held the closest that were the most false. It was the ones who I hadn’t realized were in my corner that surprised me. My support system wasn’t composed of many who I had wanted there, but I still had support.

The journey I have been on is in many ways at an end. I have faced my trauma. I have healed in many ways. It wasn’t one thing. It was my teachers, it was my counselor, it was my healer, it was dancing, it was my friends, and it was surprisingly my stepdad, Phil. I told Phil that he was my dad now. The bad dad doesn’t exist for me anymore. Phil stepped up.

Here I am, on the other side of so many things. I know that I am largely healed and have released a lot of trauma. I know that my divorce will be over soon. I know that though all of the doors in my life are closing, God will open the next one once I’ve tied up all of my loose ends.

I’m not really sure what’s next for me yet. I’m not sure I want to continue my blog. I’m not sure I have it in me to be the marketing genius I need to be to get my business off the ground. I certainly don’t want to settle for selling through predatory channels like Amazon, Facebook, and all the others.

I have spent hundreds of dollars, paying to have my blog posts and jewelry shown to an audience. It has led me to see how self centered many people are. It has brought abuse from strangers, but also small support. I have dug myself into a financial hole that I’m not pleased with and I don’t see any chance of recouping any of it.

It has led me to be disgusted with people. I can’t fathom what makes anyone lash out at a stranger the way many people have lashed out at me. I have only tried to explain what it feels like to be living with trauma. I have only tried to offer kindness and compassion to those who are still fighting through their own trauma.

I have learned that people are too broken and disillusioned to want to help themselves. They only care whether they get help and they despise anyone who receives help when they still need it. No one cares anymore whether someone makes it out of trouble. They only care how much it costs.

I’ve never liked money. I have many good reasons for this, reasons that are my own and too personal to share with strangers who would tear me apart for them. The more I learned about money and where it came from and how it’s used, the more disgusted I became with the people who worshipped and believed in money over God.

Now that I am healed, now that I have faced my demons, now that I have made the motions I need to make to set myself free, I realize that not everyone is here to do what I’ve done. Most people will only ever seek pleasure and run from their pain. Most people would rather remain lost than know what I’ve learned on my journey. I have learned that only those who seek out the path are worthy of the message.

I have paid for an audience and been abused by it. No more. Not for me. If you want to hear what I have to say, then YOU come to me. I’m not going to give away my knowledge anymore, not to people who don’t deserve it.

So what will it be? Do I have your support? It is not a time to be silent. It is the day before we give thanks for all of our blessings. Do you even know what those blessings are? I do. I know what mine are.

This is the end of my suffering. It is the end of everything the world told me to be. It is the end of abuse for me. It is the end of my marriage. It is the end of lying to myself. It is the end of blind gratitude. It is the end of paying people to listen to me. But it is not the end of me.

This is only the beginning. This is a new world for me. I no longer fear what comes next. I have no fear of what came before. I am right here, right now, and that’s where I’m going to stay. I know that what comes next is going to be amazing, because I am done with suffering. I am on my path now and I will never lose it again.

I don’t know what comes next, but I know that I have everything I need to manager whatever comes my way. This is the beginning of the Cate I want to be. This is the beginning of MY life. I am happy.

Thank you to the people who have expressed their support. I appreciate you. My best wishes to you all. I’m off to experience life. Only those on the path can find me now.

This is only the beginning…