Hi Anne(withan-e)
Firstly I would like to commend you for sharing any part of your story, and for reaching out in those moments when you felt alone, you should be proud of yourself for that. From what I have read your situation has been extremely tough, I can't imagine the pain you must have been in physically after 13 surgeries. You are never alone there is a huge community of people with compassion and understanding who are more than happy to listen to any gripes you may have and share your burden, a problem shared is a problem halved and she was right, just talking about your problems gives you a better understanding of them and allows you to be open to new ideas of how to manage and solve anything you need help with. As for childhood trauma, there are a great team of people who have been studding this and have found that there is a correlation between childhood trauma and mental health and our ability to understand problems in adulthood without the fight or flight response taking over when not necessarily needed. As a child we learn how to respond to things and when brought up in a loving family with rules and structure we learn strategies how to respond to situations in a healthy way, but if we are brought up with trauma and no love we tend to respond to situations with fear and irrationality, and our fight or flight takes over every thought and action until we remove ourselves from that situation. There are things you can do to regain control of that response, 1; Start your day with making your bed when you get up, that is the first achievement for the day and the last thing at night when going to bed you are reminded that the day started well and regardless of what happened the rest of the day, tomorrow can start well too. 2; Forgive yourself for not having control over your childhood, that is not on you, you were a child that deserved to be looked after, don't allow that guilt to be apart of your future, that guilt is someone else's. 3; Don't ever think that you are not worthy of your care, you have to care for yourself before you can give to others, if you run your cup empty you have nothing left to give, that is why you have to take time to fill your cup with self-care. 4; Be proud of every little achievement no matter how small it's an achievement.
I hope you find a way to let your inner soul out into the world to be loved, you are worth it, be the love you need, give to yourself before others. I hope this has helped 🙂
