My Journey

To The Staff Who Helped Me Heal,

Many years ago I entered a Day Program. My life felt exhausting, hopeless, painful and full of anxiety and rage. I had tried to get help through traditional one-on-one counselling, but nobody could help me stop the nightmares, flashbacks, and the long list of intensely overwhelming emotions that I had little control over. Not only was I lacking emotional control, but my whole life was just a mess of chaos and drama. I felt like my life was just a daily dose of crazy upon wakening in the morning. This made me feel worthless, broken, ashamed and angry. The anger was uncontrollable and aggressive. It covered how vulnerable and scared I was all of the time. I never felt loved, understood, or supported; a lone wolf fighting through life just surviving day by day. Truly all I wanted was to feel safe, secure, nurtured and loved, and I didn’t believe I deserved any of that. I felt useless, and filled with pain. My relationships were affected by my toxic behaviours that I acted out. I was reactive to even the smallest of situations. My thinking was all or nothing, black or white; I couldn’t see any grey areas that lay between. Everything that happened to me was not something I ever had a choice about. Bad chaotic things just happened to me all of the time. When really I was sabotaging myself without even realizing that was what I was doing it. I had no choice in the matter, I just got dealt a bad hand in porker, and some people are just unlucky like me.

I finally hit my bottom or last strike so to speak. I had what I call an emotional break, it was PTSD, I was relieved that I wasn’t losing my mind there was a reason I felt so crazy inside, and that meant I could be fixed! For years I just thought, “This is who I am, I was born this way. I have no choice but to be this way” Because I now knew I could be fixed two weeks before the program started I started to think, “I don’t need to go I can do this myself.” I was going to cancel my spot. In that moment I made a promise to myself a commitment to my healing journey. "No matter what is said to me, how it makes me feel, I will trust that the women, (who at that time ran the program) no matter what, I can’t trust my instinct to run and avoid." I believed that they were my last chance at having the type of life that I believed was normal for me. I swallowed my fears and started the program two weeks later.

I chose to stay at the program for what I think was 3 or 4 semesters working on me. My therapy became my full time job as it was exhaustingly hard work. I was determined to heal and start living my life. The staff would challenge me when I couldn’t challenge myself, encouraging, and supporting me through my process. There were times when I would be angry and defensive because of being pushed and transference that I was experiencing. I kept my promise and would go home to reflect and work through my reactions by using worksheets from the program. I often would find that the staff had a point, or that what was said was worth thinking about or questioning about myself. It was hard work to learn to utilize the new tools and coping skills I had been taught. It got easier and I did start to see differences in my relationships, how I coped with stress and crisis, even in my emotion regulation. I became more mindful and self aware, this helped me with my flashbacks, anxiety, nightmares, even getting to sleep.

There came a moment when I shared during a group that I became aware of how much I had grown in my time at the centre and that that staff couldn’t do anything more for me. I accomplished what I went to the program for. The time had come for me to move forward to the next chapter of my new life, where I could continue to use the skills and tools I had learned and master them. Years have gone by since I left the Program, and I have continued to use all that I learned from my time with the great team at the centre. I have kept journals from then until now and go back through the pages of my past and I can see how far I have come from the dark hopeless place where I had begun. I have found peace in my life and I am more content then I have ever been in my past 34 years. I truly believe that this program was my saving grace. For without it I know I would have self destructed. I want to truly from the depths of my heart and soul thank each and every person who helped make this life possible. For helping me find my way back to the present. I will always have PTSD and there are still days where I have anxiety, sadness, anger, and that’s ok with me. I know we can never get rid of our past experiences and feelings, that is our history. But I can say, you can get better at coping with the past and moving forward.

I will forever be grateful for the extraordinary women who in the beginning put up with me acting out and being an emotional mess as I tried to heal my inner child. You all gave me the gift of a second chance. A chance to heal, grow, change and become the person I was always meant to be, but had lost along the way in amongst the pain of the past. You provided me a safe environment so that I could flourish and grow. I hope you get to know how important you were in my healing process; you all are truly special people.

I have just graduated from college with honors from the Community Service Worker program so that I can pay forward what I received from you. This is just the beginning of all that there is to accomplish in the world.

Sincerely Grateful,

Michelle