My healing journey from past trauma

@wojiaozly123

That's great that you've made a promise to yourself to transform and have taken active steps towards your healing. Writing down your progress and reflecting on what you've learned and accomplished each day can be a powerful tool for self-reflection and growth! Remember to be gentle with yourself and celebrate even the small victories along the way ❤️

I have panic attack due to my abandonment wound, and last Sunday when I went to church with my boyfriend, I saw he was talking to somebody else including a girl, which triggered this trauma so my panic attack showed up and I even cried in front of my several good friends 😥 It sounds crazy but for me it's indeed painful to have a deep wound like this, therfore, I made a promise to myself last Tuesday that for the rest of 21 days, I do not want to micromanage my boyfriend's condition, but instead I would use this time for myself to heal the wound and create new pattern✊🏻

Today is the 7th day of my healing process and I was reading a book called

The Journey from Abandonment to Healing

yesterday, and it literally saved my life! In the book the author points out that abandonment wound is indeed a kind of PTSD which rooted from childhood, and she introduces mindfulness as the first practice. For me, this process is almost like detox of drug addition that you feel extremely painful and even have the feeling to die (I do not have any suicidal attempt just an example) during the first couple of days. I felt difficulty breathing, having gastrointestinal tension and my heart also hurt like a hand was grabbing it hard, in which is very similar to the negative reactions during the first stage of detox😥 However, I decided to practice some mindfulness exercise, and I shifted my focus from my thoughts to my body feelings and sensations, and even though it takes time to completely transform this pain, I did feel better and I felt more confident of myself that I HAVE the power to heal from abandonment and love myself, and I don't need to grab something outside for the need of love ❤️

It's very tough for me but I will definitely keep going, and I will also use this post as a reminder that every time I want to check my boyfriend's social media for the ease of anxiety, I will go back to this post and read that again 😂

Yesterday I continued to read The Journey from Abandonment to Healing, and I learnt that it's normal for human beings to seek love and be vulnerble in relationships. For a very long time, I had been very tough to myself that I felt it was shameful for me to "show my vulnerbility" and to trust someone when I was in a relationship, because I believed that if I shows my vulnerbility and trusts someone, it is very possible for that person to abandonment me and I would get hurt seriously. Therefore, I used it as a coping mechanism that I did not trust everyone except for myself and I always assumed the worst from others, no matter it was my boyfriend or friends. However, although at first this made me feel "powerful", I still felt sad and lonely inside and scared of abandonment.

I was sexually assaulted last April and had complicated PTSD symptoms, so I started to work with a therapist from 7cups and that's why I am on this website. My therapist was absolutely kind and caring to me, and she always told me to be gentle and nice to myself. However, even though I understand that I have to start to love myself first in order to be healed, inside my heart I am still very critical and demanding to myself that I keep telling myself "I should try harder!" Also, I am extremely unconfident that I always assume if I am not good enough, people around me will judge and abandon me, and that's also part of the reason why I am always to harsh to myself. However, there were several things happened today which made me feel more confident that I am getting better and better and healing.

After I woke up this morning, I realized that I was having a nightmare that I was constantly bullied by a classmate in high school, but at the end of that nightmare I called the police and they came and took that classmate away. Although it was just a dream, it still gave me a sense of power that I have enough strength to protect myself and to change. I felt good in the morning but after I had my lunch, I took a nap and woke up being extremely anxious again. Then, I started to do some mindfulness practice, but there were still ruminations inside my mind about how unloveable I am. Besides, I am doing affirmations everyday saying I "unconditionally love and accept myself"; however, inside my heart I still believed that people will leave me if I don't meet their standards, which rooted from a deep fear of abandonment but not self-love. I realized the fact and started to wondering I am still lovable if I am not good enough, and then I realized that all these years I had been living in fear and hurt, but I still did not try to comfort myself. Instead, I criticized myself harder and harder, that "If you are strong enough and have done better, you don't have to be hurt like this!" Suddenly, I realized that I really hate myself so much because I am "too weak and too sensitive", and I also understood that if I really want to "love and accept myself", I firstly have to allow myself to be hurt and feel painful, but not to deny that part of myself or say "I have to be strong". Accordingly, mindfulness practice comes handy because it teaches me how to accept and live with my emotions, especially those intensive ones.

Even though it takes time to change my old limiting beliefs and to fully accept the new belief "I love and accept myself", I will keep trying and I have already seen improvements in my life that I have become less anxious and more mindful. The healing is not about my boyfriend, my parents, friends but only about myself, that I have to start to accept and to trust myself, believing I am ALWAYS deserving love and respect no matter what. This is where real confidence comes in, because it has nothing to do with the outside world but is from strong sense of self-love and faith in whatever situations. 🙏