As I continue my journey to heal from childhood trauma, I am starting to notice some patterns. Certain themes keep repeating themselves. They keep coming up for me even when I thought I had already dealt with them.
And the one big theme that keeps reappearing in my life is rejection.
So when I was out in public recently, I walked by an old friend. She was someone I knew quite well in the past, and I enjoyed her company. We got along really well, and I enjoyed our chats. But we had a falling out, and our friendship ended a year ago. And when I spotted her across the street, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I know that we both recognized each other. And I had always hoped that maybe one day this relationship would mend itself somehow. I didn’t like how it ended, yet I saw no way to repair it.
And in that moment of seeing one another, there was nothing. No acknowledgement. Nothing. We were strangers now. We ignored each other. And all that registered for me in that one moment was that she ignored me. And I became triggered. And there was that pattern resurfacing for me to deal with.
Someone had just rejected me…again!
And all of a sudden, I could feel this pain setting in. It’s a very deep pain that I try to bury and push down with food. It’s the pain I felt growing up when I was ignored by my own parents, and by others around me who failed to listen to my needs or recognize that I even had any.
And at that moment, I became that little child. And down I went. I began to spiral into that familiar pain of rejection. I immediately fell into that state of hopelessness. It took me to that place of being ignored, forgotten, where I didn’t matter, where nobody loved me and where I was a nobody.
And I just wanted to die.
But I’ve been here before. I’ve been to this place of sheer hell. This place where I see no way out but to end my own life. So this time, I knew what I had to do…again. I had to journal. I had to write from the pain of being ignored, rejected, and made to feel like I was a nobody. Like I was worth nothing to this person. I had to journal about how I hated myself, and how much I hated this person. And how I hated the world. And how I just wanted to kill myself.
I had to journal to save my life.
And underneath all my pain, I was able to recognize that this was a pattern for me in my life. I knew what this was all about. It wasn’t about NOW. As much as it felt like it was, and as much as I wanted it to be, I knew that it wasn’t. I don’t know why my old friend ignored me, but I do know that it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I was triggered. This trigger was happening for me, not to me. It was bringing up something from childhood for me to look at NOW. And that’s all I needed to know. No more.
So I wrote about my feelings. And I purged. And I fought with all I had…again. I had to figure out why I was being triggered…again. By journaling from my emotions, I was able to discover the real reason why I was triggered. There was a memory that I needed to get to in order to express the emotions around it.
And I did. And it was painful. Really painful. And it took me down for a few days. But I do know this now. Had I not gone down this road before, had I not been to that place where I almost took my own life, I could have gone there…again. And I could have lost the battle. But not this time because I know what to do. I journal from the emotions that I’m feeling. And I never hold back. I let it all out on my keyboard.
Journaling has saved my life. Literally. And it continues to save my life. Over and over and over again. Until the pain lessens. Until I am no longer triggered by someone who ignores me. Until the theme of my fear of rejection no longer repeats itself.
Until I learn my lessons.
So start to pay attention to your emotional triggers because they happen for you, not to you. They have a lesson for you to learn. If you are having suicidal thoughts, if you are hearing repeating messages about how you don’t matter, how nobody cares or how you feel so alone, start to journal from your emotions today. Begin your journey with me.
