Overcoming my trauma (Coronavirus and trauma 4)

Normally I write more when I feel shit, but this time I decided to write and share how I feel even though I feel better.

A few days ago I wrote about falling back into my teenage trauma. I wrote about becoming aware of my dissociation from my emotions, an old pattern that allowed me to survive during my childhood and adolescence, and that was also activated when confinement brought back my trauma. However, with the realization of this pattern it stopped working so well. I am not a psychologist, and I don't know if a conscious dissociation of your emotions is really possible. But what I do know is that in my case upon realizing the pattern of dissociation, I began to reconnect with my emotions, with the result that I fell back into my old trauma. I was miserable.

But this time it didn't last long. And this time not because I reactivated the dissociation mechanism, but because I focused on the differences between the traumatic context of my adolescence and the here and now. In my adolescence I had no support. There was only loneliness and helplessness. And the toxic love of my mother, from which I had to defend myself. I also had no idea about when and how I could escape the situation. Without support, without feeling loved (beyond toxic love), I was not able to sustain my emotions - dissociation was necessary in order to survive.

Now the situation is very different. Although I live in the confinement situation which means I cannot meet my friends, I cannot hug my friends, I do have friends, I do have support. I feel loved and supported, even though we can't hug. It has helped me a lot to share my feelings, to share my despair, to share my helplessness with my friends, and to receive their affection, their love, their support. Here I will not put names, but you know who you are. Thank you very much for being there, for supporting me, for your messages, for our calls. I don't know where I would be right now without your support!

I am aware that I will have my ups and downs over the next few weeks. But now I know - I feel - that I am not in it alone, I feel loved and supported. And I love you. Very much. And I send you a very warm (virtual) hug. Thank you!