From Trauma to Self-Ownership: A Journey of Healing

In the past 15 months: I've climbed a mountain of childhood trauma and deep neglect served me by my single and traumatized mother resulting in bullying from nursery school to high school. Pure hell that kept me blind and dumb to my own reflection, let alone to who I really am — all I knew was rote survival, fucking ferel. But I climbed it and found civility and ownership. I no longer look up at my trauma, paralyzed by its ominous and suffocating presence. I now look down upon it. I own it. It's mine and I'll have it no other way. It will no longer control my behavior or emotional response. It serves me wisdom and it is my flair, something to be proud about. Gaining perspective from above the trauma, I bore witness to my neurodivergence, clear as day, finally. So much confusion and frustration and loneliness now had reason. I finally saw who I am. I didn't know who I was and I see so clearly just how tragic and unhealthy that is. I finally saw why I've never really learned a damn thing in my life, despite every single person I know declaring my intelligence. ADHD AF. I am smart, I just don't know how to learn. I am also quite intuitive which, paired with my intelligence, was enough for me to get by — to fool people into believing what they already believed: that I'm smart and successful and normal. I was fucking lost. But I see it all very clearly now, and I'm everyday learning new methods to manage both and I'm excited for my future. I'm even proud of being AuDHD. Cool, let's go. Proud of my trauma and surviving it Proud of my neurodivergence I'm done, right? I'm healed? Fuck off, there is nothing such. Dysautonomia, you're up. Motherfucker. Orthostatic hypotension, nausea, exercise intolerance, heart rate all over the place, gastroparesis, poor balance, increased intracranial pressure, mental and physical exhaustion.. and, and, and .. I realize these symptoms do, or have, followed me most of my life. I'm very sensitive to heat and cold, and these symptoms pop up in various configuration as my exposure to both heat and/or cold increase. I see it going back to my late teens, I now understand those periods of … heaviness and confusion in my past. These symptoms aren't something mental or due to AuDHD. These symptoms point to cranial instability. And I broke my clavicle in spectacular fashion at 10 years old. The clavicle is a multitasker, two of its functions are defense-oriented: 1. The thick knot nearing your sternum protect the network of nerves and vessels supporting brain/body connection and communication 2. It acts as a strut, or support, that protects your neck from breaking upon a fall into your side; it'll break before your neck, sparing it the same, but not all damage, it turns out. Which is exactly what happened at 10yo for me, as I slid standing on a slip/slide — going fucking downhill no less. I fell immediately and remember severe pain, but not much else. Not even the healing or rehab, which gives me reason to believe it was quite a traumatic injury. And it was, I have damage to C0-2 in my neck, and have had most likely since 10 years old. Vagus nerve is deeply affected, atrophied even, appx half the size it should be. Fuckin wow. Just wow. I even noted in late Oct or early November, twice I was struck with acute pain deep in my neck .. I nearly wrote it off, as I suspect I have gave too many times in my past, clouded by other unacknowledged traumas, but I made note this time. This time is all that counts. I found it. I fucking found it. Therapy, regeneration, both are possible and available, and expensive. Whatever. I'm game. I can navigate this as well. I'll heal, thank-you very much. What a fucking ride. As luck would have it, if you believe in that nonsense, just as I learn the 5 W’s of me, of what has ailed me and what makes me, I'm set to start a new career in early January. One suited to a person with my skills and nuances. One that will allow me to help human beings in a human way, which is all I've ever wanted. I'll take these 15 months as my crib and raise you with all I have, I'm all the fucking way in. Motherfucker. What a ride.

The user shares a deeply personal and transformative journey over the past 15 months, detailing their successful navigation of childhood trauma and neglect, leading to self-ownership and acceptance. They have also identified and embraced their neurodivergence (AuDHD) and uncovered the physical origins of chronic health issues, including dysautonomia, linked to a childhood clavicle fracture impacting their neck and vagus nerve. This profound self-understanding fuels their excitement for a new career aimed at helping others, marking a significant phase of healing and self-discovery.

Merry Christmas you beautiful filthy animal lol. I love reading your journey. Welcome to the peak above trauma, where you can now see yourself without all of those added layers of wonder and discovering. It hasn’t been an easy trek but knowing that the journey wasn’t experienced alone is deeply connecting. I appreciate your journey and all that you shared here.

@lyraea Thank-you for your kindness, I'll send it forward, share it. Sharing, it might be our singular purpose.

Your 15 months hit different after the day I just had. I read you owning the trauma, looking down on it instead of up at it, finding the AuDHD, then saying "I'm done? Fuck off" — and then the body speaking louder: dysautonomia, orthostatic drops, the C0-2 damage from that clavicle break at 10, vagus nerve atrophied to half. You found it. You fucking found it. I get it in my own language. I stopped sixth gear at 45. I'm 50 now. The last five years have been the downshift to idle. Before that I was undiagnosed Ehlers-Danlos, labeled Autistic through my eldest son's Easter Seals team, with cluster headaches, while I was running a three-state triangle every month — southern Illinois to Lakeland Florida to clean my dad's mold-filled trailer, to southern Indiana for my 17-year-old's psych appointments, back to Illinois, rotating my daughter one trip and my middle son the next, caring for my disabled sibling-in-law the whole time. I didn't have the word dysautonomia then. I had "system floods." I had the orthostatic wobble — dim vision for three seconds when I stood up loosey-goosey because the muscle pump was offline, dancer mode when I pre-tensed to stay upright. I had the sudomotor story — no sweat in Florida sun as a kid, then the morning drench before a bowel movement, the armpit pain sweats with a different scent, the full-body sheen only when I finally let go. I had spikes — the hot-coffee rescue for post-nasal drip nausea, the floaters ramping with heat and noise before a cluster cycle. That's all autonomic. I just called it "Does not compute" and "Banks hold." Miguel Ruiz was right in the fifth agreement — people perceive through their own story. Most don't have a framework for a body that held 45 years of caretaking in hypermobile tissue while being told it was just autism or just anxiety. What's novel now isn't that we can rev. We've proved that. What's novel is finding the trauma-forged who know idle is the ideal, and who watch a rev and read it as a diagnostic — information, not a demand to stay there. You naming the vagus, naming the C0-2, naming dysautonomia as the umbrella — that's foreknowledge and consent coming online. Same as me learning to rotate magnesium by context instead of by clock, same as me learning hot liquids aren't comfort, they're a thermal counter-stimulus to a spike. Therapy, regeneration, expensive, whatever — you're game. Of course you are. You're starting that human-way career in January. That's not luck. That's the system finally using you with your consent. I'll take your 15 months and raise you my 45 years in sixth gear: what a ride indeed. I'm all the way in with you. I call this journey the dance of the dragon ~