Reflections & New Phases
- L.M. Pierce
- Dec 4, 2015
- 3 min read
Yesterday was my final day of class for this semester. I am currently enrolled in a Counseling Psychology program and have successfully completed my very first semester! One of the courses I took was called "Treatment of Trauma and Abuse" and though it was one of the most difficult classes I've ever had to take, it has also changed my life in very profound ways. For me, like so many others, trauma has formed the bedrock of my early life experiences and compounded as time has gone on. Though I've spent years in therapy myself, acknowledging that our past never truly leaves us can be very painful. This has never been more painfully obvious as it was during this class. I cried a lot. I'm not a big crier in general, so it was an indication big stuff was happening beneath the surface. I won't get into a lot of specifics but I do want to share part of my
final reflection paper that I wrote for my class: "In addition to the emotional work and setting boundaries, I also focused on healing my physical body. Before classes started, I had bariatric surgery to address the increasing health problems I was having as a result of my Poly-Cystic Ovary Syndrome and resulting obesity. Through the course of this class, I began to recognize, especially as I began losing weight, that eating and gaining weight had been a long-time coping mechanism for me. I had gained weight as a protective measure—somewhere inside I still thought being sexually assaulted was my fault and I didn’t want to be pretty or appealing to those who might use that as a reason to hurt me again. But I also realized food was an expression of love. My mother, sick as she often was, showed us love by showering us with cases of soda (we were a Coke family through and through) and taking us to McDonald’s. That doesn’t seem like much now, but as a child, it was a subtle affirmation that she still wanted us to be happy and was trying her best. The problem is, when I want to feel like I love myself or to show love to others, I often do it through food. I love cooking for family and friends and pride myself on my cooking abilities. Unfortunately, these experiences reinforced a set of conditions that led to serious physical repercussions. So during this semester I focused on recovering from surgery and also changing my relationship with food. Perhaps it also contributed to the bleakness I felt at the beginning of the semester: I had lost my key method of comforting myself and didn’t have good replacements yet. My replacements now involve hiking with my fiancée and my dog, and I use the money that I used to spend on junk food on things that nurture my inner being and self-esteem. I used to feel raging guilt over buying myself a pretty shirt and I never dared spend money on getting my nails done. I told myself I didn’t look good in dresses and it was all vanity anyway. Well, now I focus on allowing myself to feel good about my physical body. I also want to take care of it because I’m the only one who really can.
My body has gone through a lot and survived many abuses, carrying me from the darkest depths of my childhood and traumatic early adulthood, to the highest pinnacles of my many successes. Even with the many things I have gone through, I still have a lot of love to show and I’m enjoying coming up with new and healthy ways of showing it. For the first time in my life, I am acknowledging that my life isn’t perfect and not only is that okay but I am grateful for it. Beattie talks about gratitude being a practice and that showing gratitude, even for the things we don’t like, can help shift perspectives towards the positive we can take away from each experience.
So, with that in mind: I am so grateful to be in the best and healthiest relationship of my life and am looking forward to getting married next year. I am grateful for the intellectual and emotional challenges of graduate school. I am very grateful for the pain I felt this semester, as well as the self-doubt and hopelessness I experienced. I am grateful I didn’t do as “perfectly” in my classes as I thought I should have. I am grateful for my body and its imperfections as well as its amazing resiliency. I feel grateful when I think back on all the horrible things that happened to me as a child and young adult—being alive to see and experience success feels so much sweeter now. All of these things are good, even the hard stuff, because it’s culminating into an experience that cannot be duplicated through study alone. You have to live it: all the good and the bad.
I remember what a therapist used to tell me over and over when I was an adolescent and in the grips of crisis—she said, “Your greatest struggle is learning radical acceptance, to accept things as they are, not as they should be.” Well, I like to think she would be proud of where I am today. As Beattie says about showing gratitude: “This exercise helps us understand that each moment is perfect, as it is. Awareness leads to acceptance. Acceptance takes us to surrender. Surrender brings power and peace.” That sounds pretty radical and accepting to me."
I think this might be the most honest thing I've ever written and sharing it has lifted a great weight off my shoulders. I also want to share some progress pictures and let you know how I'm doing.
Top Left: I'm down to a size 11 and feeling quite skinny these days! Top Right: My tummy is getting flatter and my muffin top is disappearing, even when I wear a belt!
Bottom Left: Bummer, my hair IS falling out. I have quite a bald spot on the top and the front is thin. OH well, combover and rock it. It's just hair and I know it will grow back!
Bottom Right: Breakfast for me consists of a premier protein shake (vanilla) mixed with iced starbucks coffee (unsweetened) and a Triple Zero vanilla yogurt mixed with two tablespoons of leftover cranberry sauce.
A small note on caffeine: A lot of people say to not drink caffeine after surgery, while others say its fine. I was not a coffee drinker before surgery but it is one of the few things that helps with my severe constipation. After almost crapping myself in public after taking a "stool softener" I've found coffee to be the lesser of all evils. I can poop without pain or emergency and I'm only drinking a small amount with a lot of protein in the morning. Personal choice here but it's working for me.
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