I’ve been spending a great deal of time on LinkedIn. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. 2017, I started public speaking workshops for teenagers. 2018, I had a bunch of purging on facebook. 2019, I’m doing awareness on LinkedIn. Officially it’s the last platform to break my silence.
I know I’m loved. I know there are so many eyeballs watching me. I know some are waiting for me to fail. There are more quietly cheering me on. Most cringe with my sidesteps but mostly they are supporting me with finding the humour in my behaviour. I continue to break cycles that no longer serve my highest self.
I help people. I inspire people. I run a few businesses. I’m about to embark on a new hustle and each week, I’m presented with new opportunities. None of this is as important as finding my Tribe. Breaking my silence on LinkedIn has been beyond powerful. This is my high functioning group. The creme de le creme. The people (similar to me) that have been exposed to domestic violence but 1. don’t talk about it so it’s virtually impossible to identify. 2. think emotions are unnecessary and live & die by the saying ‘one-time shame on you, two times shame on me’. 3. Can also admit to a personal mantra of, ‘It’s not personal, it’s business’ and know exactly how to flip the switch. It’s self-preservation. I know these people and can identify them because I AM one of them.
It took me 20 years of conditioning and 11 years of active abuse to figure it out. Nearly 3.5 million words later, I’m still cleaning up parts of my life. Can I run a business? Yes. Can I pay my bills? Yes. Can I have functioning interpersonal relationships with HEALTHY people? The operative word being healthy. How exactly do we define healthy? *smirk*
Am I still allowing toxic people into my space? Once identified, they are removed. Am I losing my shit when people push a trigger? Nope, not my business. I feel the feels and do the things. Always doing the things… but now feeling the feels whilst doing the things.
I love to disconnect. I didn’t see this as being good or bad. I see it as being clever. I see it as being functioning because most days, I’m surrounded by unhealthy people. But those rare moments… the moments where my guard comes down. A compliment is shared. From heart-centre. My inner child comes out to play. I’m having more of those moments as of late. I take everything very serious. Friends are usually laughing at me. 
Serious Jess means that I don’t feel safe. All things considered, since being in Chicago, when I shared my heartbreak, I would have a penis thrust into my personal space (thanks fb for the reminder – see the tangent for Sweetest Day 2018). Other times I shared my heartbreak, I was told to just get over it. Be positive. Focus on the good. Today is much different. People are kind. I’m finding my Tribe.
I’m 2 years into a healing process. 2 years. To put everything into context. I moved to ground zero of my trauma. My mission, to figure it out. #JourneyToPeace.
In the first year, I lost my father and my brother. Those were difficult truths to accept but manageable. The second year, I lost my mother. This was a devastating truth. This nearly shattered me. Abuse 101, specifically psychopath abuse… when an abuser can no longer control you, they control how others view you. My mother went from being my mommabear, my person, my go-to for everything in life to a stranger. She is now someone that doesn’t think my existence is worth anything. Clouded by her pain, she’ll take that truth to the grave. She allowed others to get into her head and affect her heart. If she’s happy, then I’m happy. Deep down, if she’s happy then she did one hell of a great job at pretending to care about me for 33 years. That’s a truth that I struggle with every single day.
But still, I’m sharing my truth and picking up coaching clients on a semi-regular basis. Sure, I still deal with people that are wasting my time. I also deal with predators that use my blog as a roadmap on how to inflict pain. But those are far and few between. The majority of people in my world are well-wishers. I’m forever protected by a handful of guardian angels. Regularly, I feel their presence. My Grandfathers, my Godmother and Dave. I’m sure there are more but those are my regular protectors.
And today, I honour a message from a magical soul. I had sprinkled out love into the LinkedIn world earlier in the day. This friend liked one of the comments. I sent her a text “You are by far magical in every sense of the definition” and her response “Love seeing what you’re doing… people who need to hear your voice are finding you, and I love seeing it!”
What I lost in trauma, I’m gaining through recovery.
The journey continues…
#DomesticViolence #Resilience #Recovery #EmotionalAbuse #MentalWellness #OneDayAtATime