A Welcome for Survivors

March 13, 2022

by Emerson Frost

None of us want to be here. We didn’t choose or ask for or deserve what happened, but here we are in the aftermath of abuse or manipulation or gaslighting…here we are because we want to live again. OR at least we want to want to live again.

Some of us are wrestling with the various stages of grief. We grieve for the loss of our autonomy, our safety, our everything. We can ignore, we can cry through, we can build our own resiliency beyond the pain – we can ignore and conquer; we can sink and swim. We can be angry and we can love at the same time.

“We can sink and swim. We can be angry and we can love.”

– Emerson Frost

Healing is slow for me, yet at the same time it also can feel like a whirlwind. Sometimes I get actual headaches processing new ways of thinking, realizing how small-minded I was taught to be. It hurts my head and my heart, but it pushes me forward to a place of peace, of love, of just being.

And then….

Bump in the road!

It’s okay again.

Hurricane.

Phew, that was scary.

And on and on the situations come one-by-one and ten-by-ten. And we are still trying to fight to get our heads above the darkness that we may or may not be out of yet. That horrible darkness where the only way out is to pretend we are okay. And then one day, somewhere, we find out that Hope is still waiting for us.

We are allowed to cling to both fear and hope at the same time.

We are brave and scared at the same time. We are survivors growing into surthrivors. I’m glad you’re here.

– Em

A Note to Friends and Allies

Dear friends and allies, please do not ever tell us how brave and strong we are. Instead, please say “I am very sorry for what you experienced. It was not right. Do you feel safe today?” Then maintain your emotional boundaries with us as you support us; we do not often know what is appropriate to share with a close friend and what is more appropriate to share with a trauma-informed professional such as a life coach or a therapist. It is not your responsibility to carry us, but please help us get to the right tools.

Please do not abandon us, or gaslight us, or question us.

Please just hear us and shower us with compassion and acceptance, “you did not deserve that and I am so sorry that was your experience. Questions we may be asking ourselves, we don’t need to hear from an outside voice as we try to separate in our minds our feelings of shame from the reality that we are just as valuable as before our trauma occurred.

A final note to friends and allies, a great place to help your struggling friend to get immediate, compassionate support is the Crisis Text Line; it is free to text 24/7 the Crisis Text line at 741741. A way to suggest it might sound like this, “I am so sorry that you are experiencing this. I am so sorry that you are struggling and I thank you for telling me. Thank you for opening up so we can look for the right resources for you together. I heard a good place to start is texting 741741.”

The Crisis Text Line provides text support to residents of UK, USA, CA, IRE and worldwide support via Facebook Messenger. Your “crisis” can be that you are about to snap at your kids because you got triggered at work earlier that day and pushed it aside and haven’t processed it yet so now you are “stuck” in defense mode…..sometimes we all may need a little help re-regulating our nervous systems, our mindsets, our moods. And that is human. That is what we should be like. There is nothing wrong with us, even if there is “something wrong with us.” There is nothing fundamentally wrong with YOU, your essence, your presence, your life force, your personality – there is nothing wrong with YOU. Sure, I’m glitchy as hell with my cPTSD (in American it’s just PTSD.) But even with somatic flashbacks, anxiety attacks, depression wars – I am valid. I am important. I am valuable.

And so is your friend, and so are you dear one. Thank you for stopping by to check out our site. Feel free to order any products you’d like, listen to the podcast free, read the blog free, and enjoy the friendship I’m sending your way.

Also feel free to let your light shine as brightly or as dimly as you need in any moment; your light is first and foremost for You.

Best,

Em