The road ahead: taking action
Working with a trauma-informed professional is also important. Whether it’s a therapist, religious or spiritual professional, or community group, getting help and support can develop the coping skills you need to move forward and to address anxious symptomatology. Community is important in your healing process. While support groups can help with psychoeducation and tools, they also bring community, shared experience, and remind you that you are not alone. Having a community can be liberating and feel like a weight is lifted from your shoulders.
Recognising strength in your struggle
It’s easy to begin blaming yourself or to feel powerless in the wake of such trauma. But, by surviving the experience, you have already shown incredible resilience and fortitude. Acknowledging this and the fact you are stronger than you realise is the first step towards healing. The experience has given you an armour made of resilience, empathy, self- awareness, and determination.
To tap into this armour, you need to reframe the narrative of your daily life. For instance, look at your word choices and begin using the word survivor instead of victim and identify your experience as wisdom. In reframing, you need to share your narrative which means sharing what you experience with others. This could be done with friends and family, professionals in therapy, a trusted religious or spiritual advisor, or via writing in a journal or even a book. Sharing brings its own form of peace over time, provides information and education to others unaware of gender-based violence, and can give strength to those who are still experiencing
What if taking that first step could change your life? What if, by confronting your anxiety, you are forging a path for others to follow instead of just helping yourself? Have you ever seen an image of progress? It is never linear, and neither is healing. You have moments of growth and empowerment followed by periods of intense anxiety and sadness. Setbacks such as this do not define you and are a part of the healing process. It takes time to heal and sometimes part of that healing is accepting those moments of pain which still exist in your reality. That
acceptance, and working through it, are signs of progress. With the right support, tools, and a growing community around you, healing is something that will occur. During the healing process, always remember to grant yourself grace and treat yourself with the same compassion with which you would treat another person. This is part of reframing your mindset. This is not easy, but you should embrace the journey. Your life is worth experiencing healing and the world needs more warriors like you. Having a community can be liberating. 74
November 2023 | Collective Action Magazine
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