Enduring a traumatic childhood is not unlike breaking a bone, just at a different scale:
A part of the self was put to purpose it was neither prepared nor designed for, pushed beyond its limits, and was broken. In an effort to allow it to heal, we immobilize that part of ourselves. Attempting to use it while broken only causes more damage.
A consequence of that disuse is it’s healing. Another, is its atrophy. Due to the period of rest, while entirely necessary, that part of the self has grown weak, weaker than when the break occurred. Weaker than it’s ever been. It is fit for little beyond simply being.
Every bonfire begins as a single spark, and that spark requires a gentle, loving breeze and some tinder to teach it how again to be the flame it was made to be.
We gain strength of body by pushing our limits, especially those self-imposed limits used to protect ourselves. Just so, our capability to process emotions may be underdeveloped, and we feel overwhelmed in ordinary, everyday circumstances.
Risk is unavoidable, but to mitigate risk does not allow for healing, merely survival. Masking and unhealthy coping strategies allow for healing, but do not foster growth.
When the healing has occurred and the wound is no longer tender, it is once again the time for work.
Not the back-breaking and sweat of the laborer at the spade. Our arms and legs are not what needs the exercise, but our hearts and our spirit.
It is the time to love, with wild and reckless enthusiasm.
To risk losing that love, and to then bleed upon the page with melancholia and despair, should it not last.
To endure awkward silences and tiny conflicts with colleagues and friends.
To set boundaries, have those boundaries tested, and to stand up to that challenge and in doing so prove to ourselves that we are worth it.
To find a hill worth dying on, and to die on it.
As the broken one dies, a healed one emerges. Gone is the abused, abandoned, and neglected child. In their place stands one capable of weathering the challenge that had broken them so long ago. Someone capable of anything, and willing to take the risk to get it.
So go forth, children of Man. Become stronger, as I know you will, and show the world that what doesn’t kill you, may still cause a death, but that you shall become more powerful than they could possibly imagine.