Kris’ Blog

I don’t really remember last Christmas. The holiday memories of Thanksgiving are also hard for me to place. I used to love holidays—the joy and comfort that come from being with loved ones, while having a little extra sparkle in your life. It’s funny how trauma changes us like that. It makes the good memories blur as our focus shifts to our main goal: survival.

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My story looks similar to many others I had heard about, but my brain couldn’t comprehend that this was me and my life. While I was trying to make sense of what happened, I habitually placed the blame on myself. I wanted to move on from the nightmare of what happened so desperately that I never really addressed my reality.

My desperation lingered for months. All my resilience and all my pushing through was fading—and that was an act I thought I had mastered. I finally hit the end of what I had left to give. I no longer looked like myself, acted like myself, or was even able to take care of myself. I couldn’t make even the simplest of decisions and had very poor concentration. I had pretty much every symptom of PTSD in the book.

I wasn’t functioning. And I wasn’t hiding it as well anymore.

I stumbled into my doctor’s office in a way that I truly believe was a miracle meant to happen. Through my sobs, she heard me and was the first voice to give me permission not only to feel, but to prioritize myself and healing.

She offered a few options; however, we knew I needed time off work to do some intensive healing, to rest, and to let my brain catch up with my body. Productivity and success used to be big drivers in my life, but giving myself time off work to find recovery was the most productive choice I could’ve made.

I spent the next couple of days researching and calling every program out there. I was desperate for relief. I came across King County Sexual Assault Resource Center (KCSARC) through all my searching. I called the 24/7 Resource Line and spoke to the sweetest voice who validated my emotions, my story, and my desire for healing. She helped set me up with the intake process, and not too long after, I was scheduled for my first appointment at KCSARC.

I kept saying to people in my life that I expected it to take years down the road to get to the level of healing that I was at only after a couple of months of treatment.

I will forever be grateful for the people and resources at KCSARC. They saw me, validated me, heard me, and remembered the tiniest details about my life that I shared. They truly cared about me and my healing in a way that I didn’t know—or really believe I even deserved at the time. They helped empower me to understand that none of what happened was my fault and helped me rewire my brain to shake off the shame and guilt that commonly attaches to this type of trauma.

Through Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Exposure Therapy at KSCARC, I even healed from heaviness I’d been carrying from years and years ago. I learned how to challenge my thought patterns and thinking traps, which aided in every area of my life but also brought my PTSD scores to subclinical levels.

I used to consider myself broken, which was one of my biggest “stuck points” in CPT treatment. My therapist reminded me of the Japanese art of Kintsugi, a practice of repairing broken pottery with gold. It not only puts the broken pieces back together to create something whole, but it also emphasizes the cracks in a truly beautiful way. The pottery becomes that much more beautiful and valuable with the story it now tells. I learned that saying “I’m broken” discredits all the hard work I’ve put in and all the growth I’ve had. My story may look incredibly different than how I expected, but it still carries the beauty of my strength and how I put the pieces back together.

Despite the healing I’m describing, this doesn’t mean I don’t have hard days. I still grieve for my life before I was assaulted, and I grieve for the girl I was last year who thought it was her fault. I give myself permission to grieve when I need to, all while clinging to the beauty and goodness in life too—holding both the pain and the joy.

Now that we’re in the midst of the holiday season again, I’m reminded of last year’s holidays. They were dark and lonely while I suffered in silence after the assault. If you are experiencing the weight of trauma or grief after an assault during this holiday season, I see you and I hear you. It can be lonely to be sad or battling PTSD while others around you seem so happy and are celebrating. You aren’t alone in that. It is an odd realization that your whole world has stopped, but it hasn’t stopped for anyone else.

My encouragement would be to look for the little slices of joy each day, but also to start the investment into your healing. Allow yourself the permission to prioritize yourself, however that looks. Maybe that’s the gift you can give yourself this Christmas.

This year’s holidays still aren’t the same for me, and reality is that nothing in my life is the same after that kind of trauma. But just like Kintsugi, I’m repairing those wounds and recreating my story, while adding a little extra beauty into it now.

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Le parcours de guérison et de rétablissement de chaque survivant est unique et personnel. Les réflexions et expériences partagées par les membres de notre réseau Empowered Voices sont personnelles à l'auteur et peuvent ne pas refléter les expériences ou le parcours de chaque survivant. Les opinions exprimées ne représentent pas celles de l'organisation KCSARC.