Survive. Survival. Survivor. That family of words, and any additional you may be able to think of, makes me very uncomfortable. They have connotations I'd rather not associate with. There is nothing wrong with surviving something, but by using those words, it means I experienced something that required survival in the first place. That is where those words begin to make me squirm. So I do what I'm good at. I scoff, dismiss the idea, make the words meaningless and unimportant. When I hear those words, my mind instantly switches into survival mode. Ironic, isn't it?
I did a number of things to survive. I never knew I was doing them. I just did. Then when it all stopped, I kept surviving. I continued to cope in all the ways that kept me alive during those times I wasn't sure I would make it. I didn't know I was employing survival strategies. I just did. One of them is not feeling anything.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling things. It happened pretty early on when the abuse started. It wasn't a conscious decision. My mind did it for me. It allowed me to survive circumstances that were well beyond the point of overwhelming.
As I grew up, I observed people a lot. I took notice of how people interacted with the world and with each other. So while I felt nothing, I used all the feeling words in all the ways I had noticed were socially acceptable. I felt nothing, but I looked normal because I talked like everyone else. My ability to live hinged on that coping mechanism for a lot of years. And it worked.
As I continued to survive by feeling nothing, I wound up putting the whole of my relationship with emotions into the phrase "I don't do feelings." For many years, that was absolutely a true statement, but in recent months, that has changed. I started feeling feelings last summer when life exploded too many times in rapid succession. Still I clung to "I don't do feelings." After all, that is how I survived so many years.
Then a couple months ago, I was talking with someone very dear to me. She spoke words that brought instant tears to my eyes. It took everything in me to contain those tears. In that moment, I realized I do do feelings. I don't want to, but somehow they are happening in me.
Recently a day approached that is hard because of the memories associated with it, and I found myself fighting with myself to not push down the heavy feelings that were flooding my body and mind. My instinct is to make myself numb, but I had learned enough recently to know that wasn't right. Then it hit me that not feeling is how I survived, but I don't have to survive anymore. The danger is over. I already survived. That part is over. Now, it's time to stop surviving. Now it's time to learn how to live.
Numb survives. Feelings live. Learning this whole feelings thing is a big task. It's going to take time. It's hard. The process is going to be work. In fact, it already is, and I just started. I fight daily to remember that feelings are normal and part of how God made me. I fight to stop surviving. I fight to feel, and sometimes I fight to want to fight to feel. But I'm still fighting, and I have a God who fights for me and with me.
To my fellow survivors, we don't have to survive anymore. We did that part, and we succeeded. Now this whole not surviving anymore is not easy. I don't say it lightly, but little by little, day by day, we can stop surviving and learn how to live. We will have to fight for it, and it will be hard, exhausting work sometimes. Let us remember together that we have a God who is fight with us and for us. He has not left us to fight this battle alone. He sees and knows the struggle it is to let go of what kept us alive for so long. He is with us in the struggle to learn to live. So you and me and God together, we will fight, and we, who already survived, will live again.
