Part II – Moving on with our lives

How many times have you heard from someone who knows about your past ask, “When are you just going to get over it?!?!?!” Over it? Probably not ever. Initially, what happened can consume our whole life as we navigate through the rocky road of recovery. In a big way, it is a life sentence. We are affected in big and little ways throughout our lives. The key is learning how to get on with our lives.

No matter how much we talk about what happened, what we wish would have been different, we can go in circles. Being stuck can keep us in a victim place and we won’t be gaining traction to go forward. Yes, we are starting out in a deficit, a deep hole that we are trying to climb out of. We slip, we fall down and we get back up and try again. We go through the stages of grief. We don’t ask for help. We learn to ask for help. Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes we are cheered on. Sometimes it is a lonely trek. We slip into the dark night of the soul then when the dawn breaks, we see a light. It all comes together to offer us encouragement in many shades to get on with our life.

It takes even greater courage to move forward despite the odds and detours. It can be comfortable being in the familiar inner state of turmoil. There is a sense of powerlessness, of what’s the use anyway. We want fairness; get into that “it’s not fair!” place. We see other people who look like that have much better lives than we do. Hanging onto this keeps us stuck.

What we do have is choice. We get to choose to take baby steps forward to stay put. We choose to get up, go to work, school or volunteering or stay in bed. Remember that having that gift of choice, even when we did not have it at the times we were abused, is available to us now.

Being in a place of choice can move us out of being powerless, in a victim place. Even when we can make small choices, it can be empowering and life-changing.