It’s an honor to hear your story Kim- and see these sweet glimpses of Ava. As a survivor married to a survivor, both of us with changed names, I’m honoring you, pleased to get to witness you in this discovery-- and hugging you, too.
I was reading and sobbing while on hold with Safelite. What a journey. Thank you for opening your heart and sharing. The universe does conspire to take care of us. Curious if you meditated on the name change and what came up for you? I know you will choose what serves your soul.
I hated my name as a kid because other kids made fun of it. My favorite epithet from when I was 5 was Pissa-face. I still remember the two girls’ uneventful names. Back then no one had an unusual name. Today it’s common. It’s nice to meet other Carissa’s. They are always younger than me. I paved the way. Hehe. My mom told me I could change my name. Kind of a big decision to put on a 5 year old. When I was born she wanted to name me Elizabeth but my dad picked Carissa. For about two seconds I considered Elizabeth and then probably ate a banana and went outside to play.
Your name is beautiful. Kids can be so cruel. I'm glad you kept your Carissa. Plus, CK. That sounds cool together too. :)
I definitely sat with the name change for a long time. I even created a new email for Ava Olson. This post had a different ending almost up to the day I published. Something was stopping me from posting it originally, so I put it aside, held off and listened and waited. Then subsequent draft poured out of me and it felt right. Better. I'm learning to take my time and really tune into my intuition again.
Your intuition knows best. That’s great that you put the piece aside until it was ready, until you were ready. Whatever we write we are giving energy to that subject. We are giving it power. I almost didn’t share my negative name memories but decided I can harness that power back.
David, this just reminded me of a question I've been meaning to ask you. I note you write your name in lowercase on your profile. Do you prefer people to use lowercase david when they're writing your name/addressing you, or David with a capital? Is there a preference in style, or does it matter to you? I've been curious about this for awhile and keep meaning to ask you. (While we're on the subject of names.)
I'm not sure why it appears in all lower case. It wasn't intentional. So, either David or david is fine. I wish I had a more interesting answer than pure happenstance!
A question for you: is it strange that I have a picture of my Shih Tzu to represent me? I don't mean to hide behind her. I chose it because I adore her. But maybe I should have a human picture, i.e., me.
Well, the picture is so tiny, I wasn't even sure what it was at first, but cute dogs are always a good idea. And when you do see it bigger, she really is adorable. When I was curious to know who you were I went looking. You were my very first paid subscriber when I turned on the paywall, so I wanted to say thank-you and see who you were. I.e. are you a real person, or is this someone playing a joke on me. (I was so happy and also in disbelief that a stranger I didn't know wanted to subscribe.)
I definitely wanted to see a picture of you if I could find one. And, you oblige by posting one on your main page, so I don't think you're hiding at all. That's the beauty of Substack. We get to choose! (And many many thanks for the boost of confidence you gave me all those months ago and continue to do with so many writers. You are very generous and thoughtful with your time, comments and subscriber-ships. I'm sure I'm not the only person you've affected in such a positive way. With much gratitude to you and your adorable Shih Tzu. 🙏
This resonates so much: "Breaking in a new therapist is overwhelming. Likely why I didn’t try very hard after my old therapist died last year. It was exhausting to even think about trying to relay my story."
Such a compelling recounting of the therapeutic process... I don't know why it never occurred to me that taking on a new name might feel natural or even cathartic as part of the process, but then also like another cycle or layer of dissociating. Thank you so much for sharing. 💜
Exquisite. Internal Family Systems is something that helps us understand the different parts of ourselves. When I read your post, I read about some of the different parts of you that may want a name. I wonder, if you keep exploring those parts ... especially the ones that want to be named ... asking Ava the same questions you invited us to explore may illuminate something new for you. I love reading this post and thank you so much for sharing this with all of us.
You are Kim. You are Ava. You are powerful and you are a mighty fine writer. Wow!
Thank you for sharing your story and allowing us to see your process both in healing and the name change decision. I’m no expert but it seems like the fact you can even see dissociation as a possibility may mean you have healed yourself? Well done on the hard work of becoming a new you. No matter what she is called Ava lives in you, beside Kim.
Yes, it surely can! I read one of your recent posts and I thought perhaps we shared a similar workaholic type ethic! Although in recovery from the crazy making work for both of us now I think?
Dear Kim, it is an honor to be privy to this recent part of your painful journey of the last year and to meet Ava of the light, creative heart. Your details about therapies are helpful for those who haven’t tried them yet. I’m glad we have such good therapies now for loosening the hold of old traumas. You wrote this with such clarity and fire.
Hi Tara. I was really hoping that by sharing the different forms of therapy it would be helpful to others, so thank-you for naming that. And, I hope it does help someone at some point if they feel they need to or want to try it. Thank-you for your kind words.
Thank you for your courage in sharing your story. I’ve shared a lot of mine in my “Changing Lives” Substack and other online writing, but held back some of the worst parts. Suffice it to say my career ended unexpectedly and I was betrayed by people I considered friends who refused to explain why they suddenly decided they wanted me gone. I’m still recovering financially and emotionally from that experience.
The details about your experience with EMDR were very helpful. Maybe I’ll try that at some point. For now, the IFS framework is the most helpful one I’ve experienced in therapy and can now do for myself in my journal.
I was worried for you right up to the end. Thinking this was maybe a story of getting fixed, of yes the blank slate at the re-occurring start. Very moving to read the different stages, so much that I recognise. Especially the remembering, in its almost literal sense.
Jung emphasises the importance of trying on different identities and that the outer identity is pliable, a tool for the inner. I don't think you have to decide on one. It will emerge. You are you no matter the name.....
I remember a short conversation with a woman on a writing retreat more than ten years back, I told her I would try to publish the fiction I was working on under a pseudonym, and she strongly advised me to stick to my given name. I did, and started using my full name. Not the daily one my parents used for me. This Christmas I noticed my dad still using the old form. And I could clearly feel the imagery and identity attached that is no longer mine.
In the trilogy His Dark Materials, people have daemons that change shape in childhood and then settle into one form. The main protagonist Lyra finds hers still capable of shapeshifting in adulthood. I am nearly sixty and very much like the idea of having a wardrobe full of identities. Not to conceal or hide, but to express the almost fluid entity I feel myself to be. Writing fiction gives me the opportunity to explore many. But I probably need more than one life to figure it all out....
One slight adjustment on the meaning of your Dutch name, I would translate it as; of bridges. It could also mean you are a bridge expert, as well as no longer on the bridge....(but it probably means they originally came from a town in Belgium called Brugge).
Hi Bertus. Thank-you for sharing all this interesting info. Especially about my last name!
You have no idea how badly I wanted my ending to be about being fixed and presto blank state to start fresh. lol. But, nope. I would've been kidding myself, just wishful thinking and not true at all. I appreciate you sharing here with me.
I loved this piece for its honesty (my word of 2024) and insight into the various therapy forms you've embarked upon. That in itself – a willingness to try and be open to consequences – is bravery.
The name thing... I write under my unmarried name; the one I held for 28 years. I do this because I feel it allows me to reconnect in a healthy way with the many versions of me with that name. Knit myself back together again somehow. Also, practically, it isn't the surname I share with my own children which feels important.
Thanks for sharing about how you chose your writing name.
I was so happy to say goodbye to my maiden name for all kinds of reasons, but the biggest one for me was I didn't want to have a different last name than my own children when they eventually came. My mom remarried, so she and my step-dad and step-brother all had the same last name and mine was different and I always felt outside of the family. I didn't want the same to happen when I had a family of my own. It's an interesting point though if you are a writer to perhaps want to have the one step removed from your kids vis a vis the last name.
Oh, Kim, I felt every word you wrote. When I finished an EMDR session, I felt so exhausted and turned inside out that I knew I shouldn’t drive, so I would sit in my car for an hour or more until I felt the storm pass and I knew I would eventually feel at peace. At some point, I realized I didn’t hate certain people from the organization I worked for. I was no longer bitter toward them. They simple were names and faces for which I felt nothing. The memory of them was no longer threatening. They were people who had no power over me. It’s a good kind of freedom where I can reclaim the good memories and the good people. I got my life back, but better.
One thing that kept me stuck longer than necessary was that I was under a non-disclosure agreement that really was a paltry buyout I accepted for some treatment costs and hospitalization bills when I finally collapsed. It was an ugly process to go through when I was most broken and vulnerable. For the help, I gave up ownership of my past, my stories and all the memories that made me who I am. Fortunately, even in my desperation for help, I negotiated the NDA so both parties were bound. When I learned they disclosed information that nullified the agreement, I felt such a sense of freedom when I decided I was no longer bound. Still, it took until March, 2023 before I started writing about my life. Interestingly, I never felt any desire to name names. I felt no need to be a vengeful asshole. It’s part of the reason I write under a pseudonym. I don’t want to put at risk people I care about, worked with, and shared deeply held ideals. Maybe someday I will feel comfortable reclaiming my name, along with certain details and events I now feel must protect.
Sometimes I felt so lost and alone on this journey. I never found a group of people who shared similar experiences and trauma, other than returning military, and I had no access to resources they benefit from. When I was based in Maryland and would leave on three or four week trips, I would return from places where I witnessed unspeakable things. That is, I could not talk to my family, friends or neighbors what I experienced in a Haiti, a Kosovo, a Somalia, or a Sudan. Why should they have the burden of knowing imposed on them, too? I never learned how to cope well to the wrenching return from a genocide or a smoldering war back to my loving family, my peaceful suburban home, and the normal life of Home Depots, Starbucks, commuter traffic, and a clean orderly office where I didn’t need to worry about stepping on a random mine or cluster bomb, see someone hanged or beaten to death, face death myself, deal with the murders of friends, or narrowly miss being kidnapped, unlike colleagues who were not so fortunate. How do you deal with those kind of experiences fresh in your mind when your children and wife need you to be who you were before all those things changed you? Ultimately it was more than I could cope with, but there was the pressure to continue because it was also my livelihood and my family depended on me.
That was then, this is now. I learned answers in counseling to some of the questions. Other questions I let go of because there are no answers or the answers are not necessary. I had to build a new life from scratch, not always doing it well, but somehow surviving the process that at one point I tried to end permanently. A broken vessel, but as time passes, less so and maybe I am changing into a different person or maybe a repaired person with a lot of slowly fading scars. Yet here I am, finally feeling joy, finally reclaiming the good experiences and friends, finally finding freedom from the tyranny of my inner life.
Sometimes I feel gratitude deeper than I can express. Sometimes I am jarred by relapses into past feelings of trauma and loss, but remember with growing confidence that those things will soon pass. I also understand and believe that what I experienced and my body’s response to it was normal and not weak. I survived and feel new life coming back into me. I was not weak, I did not lack faith, emotional strength, or resilience, so do not need to feel shame, or withdraw for fear of something from the past reaching out to touch me with dark, chilling memories.
For the first time, I actually understand and can relate to your Life Unlearned. Thank you for putting in the effort to do what you do, because we live in a serendipitous universe, and how could you ever know that as you found you own freedom from your past that others, me, could find their own inspiration and healing from hearing about your healing journey. We all need one another.
I have come back to your response and read it over a few times now Switter. I have no words and then I have so many, I don't know where to start.
First, I am so sorry for what you have gone through. I have sensed in our interactions there is a familiarity to our experiences even if they are different. The feelings our experiences have evoked and how they've manifested in our bodies feels similar.
Second, I am very grateful you were able to finally start sharing some of what you've experienced and I suspect are just barely scratching the surface of. I started here in February 2023, so not too long before you and I too was bursting at the seams to get different stories out of me, but had no idea how or where to start, so this platform and the newsletter have been helpful in that regard.
Third, I look forward to meeting more of you as you are able to feel this new life coming back to you which is giving you some joy and allowing you to speak up.
Fourth, one of my future EMDR sessions I'm hoping to tackle my more recent past, including my workplace experiences. I am hoping it gives me the same sense of peace and forgiveness you have found.
Fifth, I'm glad you are here and it means alot to me that you say you can now understand and relate to Life (un)Learned
Dec 30, 2023·edited Dec 30, 2023Liked by Kim Van Bruggen
This is the thing about writing and then sharing our experiences. We are all different and yet share much that is similar. One of the more difficult changes that comes after trauma is how one turns away from friends, family, and former work colleagues because of the need to protect ourselves against anything that can trigger traumatic memories. I would stay in bed for days, unable to think about anything other than creating a barrier of numbness around me for protection. It helped, but the thought of finding a certain permanent way to be safe from triggers that always lurked in the background and sometimes urgently so.
Writing about these things now without an overwhelming sense of dread and anxiety shows I, we can find healing. Talking sooner about it to others who experienced deep trauma would have helped, because talking about it starts to put the trauma at arm’s length. It puts it outside of us and we realize it is no longer there to hurt us, but that was also something I resisted, because I didn’t want others to experience, even vicariously, what I experienced.
Even now, I am not always comfortable with posting stories and poetry that describes aspects of the trauma I knew and my wife suggested a few days ago that it would be okay to add a small note to difficult pieces if I am worried about it. My counselor tells me time and again that whatever I experienced will never be as potent to someone else because the details, the smells, what I saw and what I felt cannot be transferred so easily and gradually I am coming to accept her perspective. It’s obvious, I suppose, because here I am, writing publicly about it.
Someday I want to put the stories together in a way that describes my experience as a sort of progression that fits what Edna St. Vincent Millay describes in her startling poem Renascence as a cycle of life, death, and resurrection. It is a beautiful cycle that ends in hopefulness and gratitude. It also reminds me of the biblical story of Job, whose life followed a similar pattern. Maybe we humans are programmed with a capacity to experience trauma, slowly process through it, and eventually see both the trauma and life in general from a wiser, more joyful perspective than we would without the trauma. I like to think about it that way, because it removes some of the sting from what often feels like wasted years and opportunities.
I realized something today after this exchange with you and imagining you in your former life. I was on a path to volunteer/work with Canadian Red Cross to go to disaster zones and help. I’m not a doctor or nurse but I was a crisis comms person for a few decades so good with organizing, decision making under extreme pressure situations. (Which is so ironic to me now!!)
I wanted a challenge and to put my skills to use serving people in real need. So of course I went straight to disaster zones in my head.
I got the call about the CEO job right after leaving my orientation with the Red Cross. So, my life forked that direction instead but the outcome of being in that environment seems to be the same. Perhaps I was destined to crack after putting myself in the proverbial line of fire or bullseye for so many issues/crises. Either way, our similarities intrigue me. I’d love to help you pull together your stories some day. When you are ready. I’m a great editor. As I did that for over 20 years too.
I want to write a series on merging back into life After the Darkness. It was the hardest work of all and each step taken was frightening, required determination, filled me with anxiety and dread, then rewarded me with joy.
For example, a friend of 30 years, through thick and thin for both of us, led me, no, dragged me kicking and screaming down a path I didn’t want to go. He was managing a project in Paradise, Cali, after the devastating Camp Fire. He was determined I needed to visit the project, so I finally gave in. “I’ll stay for twenty minutes,” I promised. So I drove to Paradise on my way home from a previous visit to NEWSTART near Auburn, Ca.
I was full of dread on my drive up. I didn’t want to go; I was not comfortable going to a disaster zone just when my past memories were losing their grip on me. All of those memories and feelings stopped abruptly when I drove into the parking lot of a non-existent church then once seated 1500 members. I got out of the car, saw over 200 gray storage sheds built by volunteers as free gifts to fire survivors who needed then, and something in me changed. I felt a sense of freedom from the Darkness I never could have expected. Something about being surrounded by people who were helping others despite their own devastating losses, and the army of volunteers there to help for no reason other than their help was needed, moved me deeply.
The short version of a long beautiful story? I stayed for three days, helped deliver sheds, and a week after I was home, received a call with a request to help with fundraising. I said yes and spent almost a year helping as I could by using skills I never thought I would never use again.
That’s not to imply that it was always easy. One day in particular, when a wildfire south of Paradise was working its way north, the smoke was so dense you needed the headlights on to drive during the day, and the project was closed for a few days for the health of the volunteers, I decided to stay and keep working. About noon, I heard a helicopter fly overhead, a Blackhawk helicopter to be precise, and because of it and everything else, felt myself falling into the Darkness. My entire body felt it. But I knew what it needed to do, found a quiet, private place, and thought the thoughts and did the things to regain control. It worked and for days after, I felt a special kind of strength and victory.
Merging back into life is hard, but it also feels so good. I am grateful for the opportunities to do so and for the courage to accept them.
Yes, I would love to have the help of an editor. I won’t forget your kind offer.
Very inspiring!
Powerful story, Kim, and a testament to the power of therapy!
Thanks Wendy. It certainly is. I'm so grateful for it.
It’s an honor to hear your story Kim- and see these sweet glimpses of Ava. As a survivor married to a survivor, both of us with changed names, I’m honoring you, pleased to get to witness you in this discovery-- and hugging you, too.
Awwww. Thank-you Lisette. That means so much. xo
I was reading and sobbing while on hold with Safelite. What a journey. Thank you for opening your heart and sharing. The universe does conspire to take care of us. Curious if you meditated on the name change and what came up for you? I know you will choose what serves your soul.
I hated my name as a kid because other kids made fun of it. My favorite epithet from when I was 5 was Pissa-face. I still remember the two girls’ uneventful names. Back then no one had an unusual name. Today it’s common. It’s nice to meet other Carissa’s. They are always younger than me. I paved the way. Hehe. My mom told me I could change my name. Kind of a big decision to put on a 5 year old. When I was born she wanted to name me Elizabeth but my dad picked Carissa. For about two seconds I considered Elizabeth and then probably ate a banana and went outside to play.
I’m honored to be on this journey with you.
I find your name both exotic and elegant so it made me sad to read that you were teased about it.
Aw. Thx sweetie. 🥰
The past no longer serves me. I’ve forgiven those little girls. Who knows what their lives at home were like.
Your name is beautiful. Kids can be so cruel. I'm glad you kept your Carissa. Plus, CK. That sounds cool together too. :)
I definitely sat with the name change for a long time. I even created a new email for Ava Olson. This post had a different ending almost up to the day I published. Something was stopping me from posting it originally, so I put it aside, held off and listened and waited. Then subsequent draft poured out of me and it felt right. Better. I'm learning to take my time and really tune into my intuition again.
Your intuition knows best. That’s great that you put the piece aside until it was ready, until you were ready. Whatever we write we are giving energy to that subject. We are giving it power. I almost didn’t share my negative name memories but decided I can harness that power back.
Whatever you decide will be wonderful. 🙏❤️
Three things: I don't think i knew your first name before. Do you prefer CK or Carissa online? And Carissa is a beautiful name!
David, this just reminded me of a question I've been meaning to ask you. I note you write your name in lowercase on your profile. Do you prefer people to use lowercase david when they're writing your name/addressing you, or David with a capital? Is there a preference in style, or does it matter to you? I've been curious about this for awhile and keep meaning to ask you. (While we're on the subject of names.)
Kim,
I'm not sure why it appears in all lower case. It wasn't intentional. So, either David or david is fine. I wish I had a more interesting answer than pure happenstance!
A question for you: is it strange that I have a picture of my Shih Tzu to represent me? I don't mean to hide behind her. I chose it because I adore her. But maybe I should have a human picture, i.e., me.
Well, the picture is so tiny, I wasn't even sure what it was at first, but cute dogs are always a good idea. And when you do see it bigger, she really is adorable. When I was curious to know who you were I went looking. You were my very first paid subscriber when I turned on the paywall, so I wanted to say thank-you and see who you were. I.e. are you a real person, or is this someone playing a joke on me. (I was so happy and also in disbelief that a stranger I didn't know wanted to subscribe.)
I definitely wanted to see a picture of you if I could find one. And, you oblige by posting one on your main page, so I don't think you're hiding at all. That's the beauty of Substack. We get to choose! (And many many thanks for the boost of confidence you gave me all those months ago and continue to do with so many writers. You are very generous and thoughtful with your time, comments and subscriber-ships. I'm sure I'm not the only person you've affected in such a positive way. With much gratitude to you and your adorable Shih Tzu. 🙏
Thanks Kim!
Here here. Amen.
Me too!
Thx for asking. CK is my pen name. It feels like a friendship when I’m addressed as Carissa. 😊
I was completely floored by this essay. It’s as urgent as it is carefully expressed, which is really hard to pull off!
By the end of it, I had a much deeper understanding of who you are—even as you continue to work through your own questions of identity.
Bravo. Thank you for sharing this exquisite piece of writing with us. ❤️
That means so much to me Maddie. Especially coming from you. xo
Honesty is so powerful. Thank you.
This resonates so much: "Breaking in a new therapist is overwhelming. Likely why I didn’t try very hard after my old therapist died last year. It was exhausting to even think about trying to relay my story."
Thank you so much for sharing your story. <3 <3
Such a compelling recounting of the therapeutic process... I don't know why it never occurred to me that taking on a new name might feel natural or even cathartic as part of the process, but then also like another cycle or layer of dissociating. Thank you so much for sharing. 💜
I thought of Cheryl Strayed when Kim mentioned name changing.
Wait, I missed this. Did she change her name??
She changed it to Cheryl Strayed. She talks about it in Wild.
Exquisite. Internal Family Systems is something that helps us understand the different parts of ourselves. When I read your post, I read about some of the different parts of you that may want a name. I wonder, if you keep exploring those parts ... especially the ones that want to be named ... asking Ava the same questions you invited us to explore may illuminate something new for you. I love reading this post and thank you so much for sharing this with all of us.
You are Kim. You are Ava. You are powerful and you are a mighty fine writer. Wow!
Thank you for sharing your story and allowing us to see your process both in healing and the name change decision. I’m no expert but it seems like the fact you can even see dissociation as a possibility may mean you have healed yourself? Well done on the hard work of becoming a new you. No matter what she is called Ava lives in you, beside Kim.
Thank you so much Donna for your kind and supportive words. xo
holy cow, that was some story! Work really can turn you inside out, can’t it? I really related to that part of it.
Yes, it surely can! I read one of your recent posts and I thought perhaps we shared a similar workaholic type ethic! Although in recovery from the crazy making work for both of us now I think?
❤️
Dear Kim, it is an honor to be privy to this recent part of your painful journey of the last year and to meet Ava of the light, creative heart. Your details about therapies are helpful for those who haven’t tried them yet. I’m glad we have such good therapies now for loosening the hold of old traumas. You wrote this with such clarity and fire.
Hi Tara. I was really hoping that by sharing the different forms of therapy it would be helpful to others, so thank-you for naming that. And, I hope it does help someone at some point if they feel they need to or want to try it. Thank-you for your kind words.
Thank you for your courage in sharing your story. I’ve shared a lot of mine in my “Changing Lives” Substack and other online writing, but held back some of the worst parts. Suffice it to say my career ended unexpectedly and I was betrayed by people I considered friends who refused to explain why they suddenly decided they wanted me gone. I’m still recovering financially and emotionally from that experience.
The details about your experience with EMDR were very helpful. Maybe I’ll try that at some point. For now, the IFS framework is the most helpful one I’ve experienced in therapy and can now do for myself in my journal.
I was worried for you right up to the end. Thinking this was maybe a story of getting fixed, of yes the blank slate at the re-occurring start. Very moving to read the different stages, so much that I recognise. Especially the remembering, in its almost literal sense.
Jung emphasises the importance of trying on different identities and that the outer identity is pliable, a tool for the inner. I don't think you have to decide on one. It will emerge. You are you no matter the name.....
I remember a short conversation with a woman on a writing retreat more than ten years back, I told her I would try to publish the fiction I was working on under a pseudonym, and she strongly advised me to stick to my given name. I did, and started using my full name. Not the daily one my parents used for me. This Christmas I noticed my dad still using the old form. And I could clearly feel the imagery and identity attached that is no longer mine.
In the trilogy His Dark Materials, people have daemons that change shape in childhood and then settle into one form. The main protagonist Lyra finds hers still capable of shapeshifting in adulthood. I am nearly sixty and very much like the idea of having a wardrobe full of identities. Not to conceal or hide, but to express the almost fluid entity I feel myself to be. Writing fiction gives me the opportunity to explore many. But I probably need more than one life to figure it all out....
One slight adjustment on the meaning of your Dutch name, I would translate it as; of bridges. It could also mean you are a bridge expert, as well as no longer on the bridge....(but it probably means they originally came from a town in Belgium called Brugge).
Looking forward to reading more....
Bertus
Hi Bertus. Thank-you for sharing all this interesting info. Especially about my last name!
You have no idea how badly I wanted my ending to be about being fixed and presto blank state to start fresh. lol. But, nope. I would've been kidding myself, just wishful thinking and not true at all. I appreciate you sharing here with me.
I loved this piece for its honesty (my word of 2024) and insight into the various therapy forms you've embarked upon. That in itself – a willingness to try and be open to consequences – is bravery.
The name thing... I write under my unmarried name; the one I held for 28 years. I do this because I feel it allows me to reconnect in a healthy way with the many versions of me with that name. Knit myself back together again somehow. Also, practically, it isn't the surname I share with my own children which feels important.
Thanks for sharing about how you chose your writing name.
I was so happy to say goodbye to my maiden name for all kinds of reasons, but the biggest one for me was I didn't want to have a different last name than my own children when they eventually came. My mom remarried, so she and my step-dad and step-brother all had the same last name and mine was different and I always felt outside of the family. I didn't want the same to happen when I had a family of my own. It's an interesting point though if you are a writer to perhaps want to have the one step removed from your kids vis a vis the last name.
Oh, Kim, I felt every word you wrote. When I finished an EMDR session, I felt so exhausted and turned inside out that I knew I shouldn’t drive, so I would sit in my car for an hour or more until I felt the storm pass and I knew I would eventually feel at peace. At some point, I realized I didn’t hate certain people from the organization I worked for. I was no longer bitter toward them. They simple were names and faces for which I felt nothing. The memory of them was no longer threatening. They were people who had no power over me. It’s a good kind of freedom where I can reclaim the good memories and the good people. I got my life back, but better.
One thing that kept me stuck longer than necessary was that I was under a non-disclosure agreement that really was a paltry buyout I accepted for some treatment costs and hospitalization bills when I finally collapsed. It was an ugly process to go through when I was most broken and vulnerable. For the help, I gave up ownership of my past, my stories and all the memories that made me who I am. Fortunately, even in my desperation for help, I negotiated the NDA so both parties were bound. When I learned they disclosed information that nullified the agreement, I felt such a sense of freedom when I decided I was no longer bound. Still, it took until March, 2023 before I started writing about my life. Interestingly, I never felt any desire to name names. I felt no need to be a vengeful asshole. It’s part of the reason I write under a pseudonym. I don’t want to put at risk people I care about, worked with, and shared deeply held ideals. Maybe someday I will feel comfortable reclaiming my name, along with certain details and events I now feel must protect.
Sometimes I felt so lost and alone on this journey. I never found a group of people who shared similar experiences and trauma, other than returning military, and I had no access to resources they benefit from. When I was based in Maryland and would leave on three or four week trips, I would return from places where I witnessed unspeakable things. That is, I could not talk to my family, friends or neighbors what I experienced in a Haiti, a Kosovo, a Somalia, or a Sudan. Why should they have the burden of knowing imposed on them, too? I never learned how to cope well to the wrenching return from a genocide or a smoldering war back to my loving family, my peaceful suburban home, and the normal life of Home Depots, Starbucks, commuter traffic, and a clean orderly office where I didn’t need to worry about stepping on a random mine or cluster bomb, see someone hanged or beaten to death, face death myself, deal with the murders of friends, or narrowly miss being kidnapped, unlike colleagues who were not so fortunate. How do you deal with those kind of experiences fresh in your mind when your children and wife need you to be who you were before all those things changed you? Ultimately it was more than I could cope with, but there was the pressure to continue because it was also my livelihood and my family depended on me.
That was then, this is now. I learned answers in counseling to some of the questions. Other questions I let go of because there are no answers or the answers are not necessary. I had to build a new life from scratch, not always doing it well, but somehow surviving the process that at one point I tried to end permanently. A broken vessel, but as time passes, less so and maybe I am changing into a different person or maybe a repaired person with a lot of slowly fading scars. Yet here I am, finally feeling joy, finally reclaiming the good experiences and friends, finally finding freedom from the tyranny of my inner life.
Sometimes I feel gratitude deeper than I can express. Sometimes I am jarred by relapses into past feelings of trauma and loss, but remember with growing confidence that those things will soon pass. I also understand and believe that what I experienced and my body’s response to it was normal and not weak. I survived and feel new life coming back into me. I was not weak, I did not lack faith, emotional strength, or resilience, so do not need to feel shame, or withdraw for fear of something from the past reaching out to touch me with dark, chilling memories.
For the first time, I actually understand and can relate to your Life Unlearned. Thank you for putting in the effort to do what you do, because we live in a serendipitous universe, and how could you ever know that as you found you own freedom from your past that others, me, could find their own inspiration and healing from hearing about your healing journey. We all need one another.
I have come back to your response and read it over a few times now Switter. I have no words and then I have so many, I don't know where to start.
First, I am so sorry for what you have gone through. I have sensed in our interactions there is a familiarity to our experiences even if they are different. The feelings our experiences have evoked and how they've manifested in our bodies feels similar.
Second, I am very grateful you were able to finally start sharing some of what you've experienced and I suspect are just barely scratching the surface of. I started here in February 2023, so not too long before you and I too was bursting at the seams to get different stories out of me, but had no idea how or where to start, so this platform and the newsletter have been helpful in that regard.
Third, I look forward to meeting more of you as you are able to feel this new life coming back to you which is giving you some joy and allowing you to speak up.
Fourth, one of my future EMDR sessions I'm hoping to tackle my more recent past, including my workplace experiences. I am hoping it gives me the same sense of peace and forgiveness you have found.
Fifth, I'm glad you are here and it means alot to me that you say you can now understand and relate to Life (un)Learned
God speed with your ongoing recovery.
This is the thing about writing and then sharing our experiences. We are all different and yet share much that is similar. One of the more difficult changes that comes after trauma is how one turns away from friends, family, and former work colleagues because of the need to protect ourselves against anything that can trigger traumatic memories. I would stay in bed for days, unable to think about anything other than creating a barrier of numbness around me for protection. It helped, but the thought of finding a certain permanent way to be safe from triggers that always lurked in the background and sometimes urgently so.
Writing about these things now without an overwhelming sense of dread and anxiety shows I, we can find healing. Talking sooner about it to others who experienced deep trauma would have helped, because talking about it starts to put the trauma at arm’s length. It puts it outside of us and we realize it is no longer there to hurt us, but that was also something I resisted, because I didn’t want others to experience, even vicariously, what I experienced.
Even now, I am not always comfortable with posting stories and poetry that describes aspects of the trauma I knew and my wife suggested a few days ago that it would be okay to add a small note to difficult pieces if I am worried about it. My counselor tells me time and again that whatever I experienced will never be as potent to someone else because the details, the smells, what I saw and what I felt cannot be transferred so easily and gradually I am coming to accept her perspective. It’s obvious, I suppose, because here I am, writing publicly about it.
Someday I want to put the stories together in a way that describes my experience as a sort of progression that fits what Edna St. Vincent Millay describes in her startling poem Renascence as a cycle of life, death, and resurrection. It is a beautiful cycle that ends in hopefulness and gratitude. It also reminds me of the biblical story of Job, whose life followed a similar pattern. Maybe we humans are programmed with a capacity to experience trauma, slowly process through it, and eventually see both the trauma and life in general from a wiser, more joyful perspective than we would without the trauma. I like to think about it that way, because it removes some of the sting from what often feels like wasted years and opportunities.
Does any of this resonate or even make sense?
Yes. Soooo much.
I realized something today after this exchange with you and imagining you in your former life. I was on a path to volunteer/work with Canadian Red Cross to go to disaster zones and help. I’m not a doctor or nurse but I was a crisis comms person for a few decades so good with organizing, decision making under extreme pressure situations. (Which is so ironic to me now!!)
I wanted a challenge and to put my skills to use serving people in real need. So of course I went straight to disaster zones in my head.
I got the call about the CEO job right after leaving my orientation with the Red Cross. So, my life forked that direction instead but the outcome of being in that environment seems to be the same. Perhaps I was destined to crack after putting myself in the proverbial line of fire or bullseye for so many issues/crises. Either way, our similarities intrigue me. I’d love to help you pull together your stories some day. When you are ready. I’m a great editor. As I did that for over 20 years too.
I want to write a series on merging back into life After the Darkness. It was the hardest work of all and each step taken was frightening, required determination, filled me with anxiety and dread, then rewarded me with joy.
For example, a friend of 30 years, through thick and thin for both of us, led me, no, dragged me kicking and screaming down a path I didn’t want to go. He was managing a project in Paradise, Cali, after the devastating Camp Fire. He was determined I needed to visit the project, so I finally gave in. “I’ll stay for twenty minutes,” I promised. So I drove to Paradise on my way home from a previous visit to NEWSTART near Auburn, Ca.
I was full of dread on my drive up. I didn’t want to go; I was not comfortable going to a disaster zone just when my past memories were losing their grip on me. All of those memories and feelings stopped abruptly when I drove into the parking lot of a non-existent church then once seated 1500 members. I got out of the car, saw over 200 gray storage sheds built by volunteers as free gifts to fire survivors who needed then, and something in me changed. I felt a sense of freedom from the Darkness I never could have expected. Something about being surrounded by people who were helping others despite their own devastating losses, and the army of volunteers there to help for no reason other than their help was needed, moved me deeply.
The short version of a long beautiful story? I stayed for three days, helped deliver sheds, and a week after I was home, received a call with a request to help with fundraising. I said yes and spent almost a year helping as I could by using skills I never thought I would never use again.
That’s not to imply that it was always easy. One day in particular, when a wildfire south of Paradise was working its way north, the smoke was so dense you needed the headlights on to drive during the day, and the project was closed for a few days for the health of the volunteers, I decided to stay and keep working. About noon, I heard a helicopter fly overhead, a Blackhawk helicopter to be precise, and because of it and everything else, felt myself falling into the Darkness. My entire body felt it. But I knew what it needed to do, found a quiet, private place, and thought the thoughts and did the things to regain control. It worked and for days after, I felt a special kind of strength and victory.
Merging back into life is hard, but it also feels so good. I am grateful for the opportunities to do so and for the courage to accept them.
Yes, I would love to have the help of an editor. I won’t forget your kind offer.
What a beautiful comment. Thank you for sharing it!