You’re Not Crazy, You’re Extraordinary
When you’ve grown up with so much trauma, it causes you to internalize a lot of narratives, most of which are false. It makes you blame yourself for almost all your ugly life experiences both the ones within your control and outside your control. The after-effect becomes the narrative that you’re crazy. You brush off your emotions under the guise that you’re just being extra. You overlook certain signals as you being the “usual” you. You belittle what your instincts tell you regularly.
If this is you, I’m here to iterate that it isn’t your fault at all. You’re not crazy, you’re extraordinary. But you don’t know how to accept this yet. You don’t quite know how to rewrite the stories, criticisms, invalidations, and judgments that were healed upon you that made you think you’re not into the truth that you’re extraordinary.
Hard things don’t befall weak people.
One of the ways to prove that you’re extraordinary and not crazy is to add up all the shit you’ve been through in life. It could be via your loved ones who have cursed you, it could be a narcissistic parent telling you how much they regret birthing you, it could be your family in general constantly downgrading you — with your partner betraying you. These shit are real. They are highly emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically draining to cope with. They can re-engineer your entire being and cause you to think you’re crazy for even assuming they happened the slightest way possible. For acknowledging that you were abused in every sense, hated, cursed, and rejected. But it did. The evidence is there. Your experience through this all is your proof. You’re not crazy, but just extraordinary.
All these couldn’t have befallen someone weaker than you in spirit. Otherwise, they’d have perished. But with you, you still stand.
You’re still here, making sense of everything
In conjunction with your experience serving as proof. The tenacity, audacity to still be here, shows you’re proof that you’re extraordinary. Telling your tales, using your story as a means to reach and look out for others, still smiling and thinking about the ones who hurt you badly, still praying for them as though nothing happened. These are solid proofs that you’re not crazy, you were just traumatized and now rising like a Phoenix to prevent someone else from going through that ordeal. Or at least validate their feelings like you never received.
You’re starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together
As earlier mentioned, when something traumatic happens or is happening to you, it can be hard to decipher at that moment what is truly going on. When you hear harsh statements like “I regret birthing you” for instance, your brain wants to just interpret it as your parents were just mad at you for what was going on then. When you get physically abused, it’s sort of hard to process what had just happened. Your thoughts are blurry, like: did this just happen? Is this the physical abuse everyone has been talking about? At that point, your past trauma plus the current event forces you to be numb, and apathetic. So you don’t fully grasp the picture. But after many days or so (it could be weeks, months, years), you start to pieces all that’s happened. You become learned enough (I hope) through prayers, exposure to others’ stories and reading, etc., that you were abused/traumatized. Everything you couldn’t make sense of becomes glaring and of course highly discomforting. That pain, that truth, that piece of knowledge are the clear evidence that you’re not crazy. And being able to survive all through that unknowingly, shows you’re extraordinary. Take it from me.
You’re now in the shedding process
After coming face to face with your demons, you acknowledge what your instincts have been trying to communicate to you. And so you double down on your attentiveness to it. In so doing, you subconsciously start to undo all that you were doing before then. Habits that gave rise to the abuse in the first place, maladaptive traits that you cultivated in the bid to escape them, and the defense mechanism you came up with unbeknownst to you. When you see yourself getting rid of the conditioning you were given, it means that you’re not crazy. Something caused you to be the way you’ve been which has been extreme and abnormal to your nature. The glaring evidence. The zeal to step up and reset your life despite it all shows you’re extraordinary.
You’re actively seeking help for a more rounded healing
As a trauma survivor, it’s hard to hear that you might never fully recover from what you were put through. People tend to think survivors are like switchboards that can be switched on and being out off for a very long time. And while it might take an equally reasonable amount of time as the trauma period to recover from it, that’s not true at all. You can’t just “get over it, suck it up or forgive and forget. That’s just unreal. The truth is that it’s a process. An arduous one for that matter. That requires spiritual and psychological intervention to kick-start that healing journey. So, the fact that you’re out there admitting that you were robbed of your senses to think and understand things well, grow in a loving supportive environment, and still seek a way to live and stop surging alone, shows you’re extraordinary. You’re not crazy, because you admit that you need help, which is all the evidence you need to rid of the guilt and shame you’ve been ridden with all this while.
You’re now a role model
Not everyone achieves this feat. So if you can beat your chest confidently and say that you’re a survivor, you can equally teach others how to be one. If you’re already doing so, then you’re extraordinary for saving many souls from the same penury. You don’t need any other evidence other than the fact that you’ve transcended your demons and lowered the baggage (to a greater level, if not all), and can now speak about your ordeal for others to learn from without necessarily breaking down. You’re extraordinary once again.
At the end of the day, it’s not a mistake or confidence that we were born into this world. Everyone has a purpose for being here. So, even if someone tried to make you feel otherwise, it’s their cross to bear for playing God in another person’s life. Parents are just parents who serve as vessels to bring children and nurture them to accomplish what they were sent to the world for, not creators. Loved ones and family members are there to serve as companions in this tedious journey of living. They are there to guide us too, especially the older ones who came before us.
There’s no need to hate, criticize, judge, punish, curse, regret, and deject anyone all in the name of correcting them or guiding them. That will traumatize gravely a person who’s truly pure and innocent. Someone who needed to be drawn closer more lovingly and be taught the right thing. Someone who needed people to be sensitive about their words and behavior around them. And when it comes down to not receiving this love, it can mar a person’s way of thinking, understanding, and believing. Which ultimately affects their self/esteem a whole lot. In so doing, this can create self-disparity, self-loathing, and hatred for oneself. As a result, they begin to think they’re mere crazy when others showcase similar threats, behavior, abuse, and trauma to them. Whereas they’re not.
At last, the evidence is your experience, your story. No one could ever take it away from you or tell it as you would. The journal you’ve been keeping is a piece of evidence, the tears you’ve soaked your pillows with over the years are a piece of evidence, and the heartache, insomnia, anxiety, and fear of self… are all pieces of evidence. But you’re doing just fine for a survivor. You’re extraordinary.
So while you partake in that healing journey, I’m here to validate your feelings, you’re not crazy, you’re extraordinary. Again, take it from me.
Thanks for your time
