Support

Recovery from emotional trauma is a very long process. I found there were some very early but distinct factors that aided my personal journey of recovery:

1. Distance - I needed to put some serious physical distance between me and my first family who had caused my pain. I fled to another state, with the help of my husband and eldest son.

2. Time alone - my head was filled with what I call a cacophony of noise in the days after fleeing Veone. Time alone walking on the beach soothed my soul.

3. Writing! My mind was going around and around the same thoughts just kept happening as my mind failed to comprehend the fracturing of my first family. Writing helped me get those thoughts out of my head.

4. Distraction - once I was back in my own safe home in Denver I immersed myself in the fight against the covid-19 pandemic by making face masks all day every day for many weeks.

5. Support. I received a multitude of messages from hundreds of friends, extended family and acquaintances. It's amazing how much that support can bolster the waning strength of a person whose experiencing emotional trauma.

6. Severing ties - I unfriended or blocked almost all extended family and even friends from the domestic violence era of my life. To feel safe from judgement and gossip I needed to separate my current happy life from the painful, life of my youth growing up in a family marred by domestic violence. 

7. Truth - I needed to speak the truth about why my first family imploded so rapidly after my mother's death. She was an amazing matriarch full of strength, she deserved better. She deserved happiness and safety.