Guide To Not Keeping Secrets With Yourself
“As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself…The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.”
— THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE” BY BESSEL VAN DER KOLK
A lot of times I hear people talk about how much they live in fear of the unknown, how they couldn’t possibly do something because of ‘x,y,z’. They’re afraid that something terrible will happen in their life that will make it so that they can’t do what they love to do, while also setting limitations that might alter their life for the better. Why do they do that?
Because they don’t think they deserve it.
I know, I’ve been there. Sometimes I am there. Just depends on the day. When I first found out about my AS and HLAB-27 diagnosis, I felt a weight lifted. But shortly after the weight lifted, a cloud started looming over. It was becoming more apparent that even though I had this genetic disease that essentially isn’t my fault, a lot of those reasons why I was experiencing the deterioration of my body and soul was because I hadn’t yet dealt with the trauma that brought me to that very moment.
To put it simply, my upbringing was.. rough. I grew up in an unstable household with emotional and physical abuse. Everyone around me drank alcohol and got stupid when they drank too much, which was pretty much all the time. My parents hated themselves - my mom took it out on her body and the next quick MLM to feel empowered and my dad medicated with alcohol. I remember going to rehabs and AA meetings at a very young age because my dad was in and out - I liked that I could have all of the Jolly Ranchers that I wanted. I never had a “childhood home” because I lived in 13 different houses and 3 different states before I even graduated high school, not to mention the essential couch surfing I did after I came out and my parents seperated. And no, I wasn’t an army brat - although sometimes I’d lie to strangers and say I was and make up this elaborate story about how cool my dad was because it was easier than telling them the truth.
At a very young age of 8 I prayed to God that he’d make me a boy. I was abused and molested by my babysitter. I watched my Dad have a catheter put in because his kidneys were failing. I thought he was going to die. I started hating the world. I constantly had to be the middleman between my parents, dodging fists and furniture. Always shielding my younger siblings from it. Needless to say, I held A LOT at such a young age, and continued to into early adulthood. And I just bottled it up - that energy had nowhere else to go but to slowly decimate the insides of my body.
My parents admitted later one of their biggest regrets they had was robbing me of my childhood. I don’t really care about that, and I wouldn’t trade helping to raise my siblings into the people they are today for anything. What I care about is the fact that my upbringing made me to feel worthless, like I didn’t deserve better. And in turn, I had so much hatred brewed. And it just got bottled up and stowed away into this poison inside my body that slowly killed me.
My whole adulthood I’ve been navigating and forgiving and healing. With my parents I was able to humanize them and see that they were just two people with their own fucked up traumas trying to navigate the world, too. Doesn’t negate what was done, just allows for understanding. It took until I was 25 to rekindle my relationship with my Dad before he passed, and I’m just starting with my mom. It’s an ongoing process. But in that process I forgot one thing -
I forgot to forgive myself.
Trauma affects the whole body, not just your mind, like I had originally thought. I forgot to forgive myself. But - the greater the doubt, the greater the awakening. So when I got diagnosed and that dark cloud loomed over, I felt it. I let it consume me a little bit. And then the fibroids hit and I felt completely defeated. But then it hit me. I’m Georgia muthafckng Tournai.
I’m Georgia muthafckng Tournai!
After my hysterectomy surgery, it just clicked. Instead of allowing fear to consume me, I use hope. Instead of suppression, courage. Instead of feeling undeserving, I feel insanely worthy. I deserve to let it all go because I deserve to live pain free. I deserve to live a life of happiness, without feeling guilt because of it. Being someone who lives with chronic pain and spinal disease, you might not always know what tomorrow brings and the pain might not always be in your control. But my upbringing had a lot of positive things, too. It taught me to adapt easily to change. It taught me to know how to survive. To endure. To thrive. And then to triumph.
If you’re like me, know there will be ups and downs. It’s always a journey, it’s never linear. That won’t change. What changes is the mindset. How you go about loving yourself. But know you are more than capable and you deserve to not be at war with your mind.
Better yet, you deserve pure happiness. And if you don’t know where to start, start with doing something that brings you joy without any purpose. It could even be as small as going outside, closing your eyes, and practicing your breathing. Listen to the nature and the wind around you. Enjoying the sun, or the rain.
The next step is buying that book.
*This is not an ad for the book. It was just so essential for me, I hope it can help you, too.*