You Are Alive for a Reason - Don’t Give Up
When I was 23-24 years old, I began cutting myself. I now know that this act was a cry for help from my 16 years old Arielle who had gone through two back-to-back terrible sexual assaults. She worked really hard to carry on with her life – landed an amazing job with a bright future – only to be struggling with the gamut of PTSD and C-PTSD symptoms on a daily basis. I sought help from a psychologist but he never once, within a year’s time, mentioned anything about the effects of trauma, which we now are aware are PTSD and C-PTSD and all their hosts of symptoms.
My symptoms continued to erode my life and my true self began to be less and less available to me. I tried my hardest to re-set after quitting my amazing job and after leaving my boyfriend, moving back in with my parents. That ended with a severe trauma that affected me for decades. Over an absurd argument, I was thrown out in the middle of winter. I was homeless, but a girl I worked with (I had gotten another job) let me stay on her couch. That winter I began an eating disorder and became quite depressed.
It wasn’t until years later and a four-year marriage to an extremely abusive man, that my suicidal thoughts began. The thoughts were born out of feelings of being just a dot in this world who did not matter to anyone. ‘Why don’t you just drive your car off a bridge?” the voice would say to me. There were also many other thoughts of ending my life that I had.
I used dysfunctional ways of quieting the voice to calm and soothe myself into staying alive until the day I looked into the mirror without my denial glasses on and saw myself as God saw me. It was in that moment that I began to devote myself to loving me and loving my savior. It has been an upward journey with a lot of learning and growing into who I was meant to be.
The key to learning to love living again, for me, is consistent dedication to self-love induced self-care acts. See list below. This develops a sense of well-being and sense of self confidence and empowerment that only causes your life to blossom and bloom into a life worth living.
My self-love induced self-care acts:
Beach walks
Body movement including strength training, elliptical, rebounding
Eating organic, healthy meals and snacks
Schema therapy
Body therapy (allowing body to release trauma)
Connecting with beloved friends and family
Writing books, blogs, articles
Podcast appearances
