I am thinking here of something very personal with me that I would like to write about. As you know, Gentle Reader, I am a PTSD survivor, or rather complex PTSD which is even worse and harder to negotiate given that it often comes as a result of prolonged child abuse. I will tell you a little about the abuse and how it affected me. My father, a poorly educated alcoholic was not ready to be a parent. He emotionally and on occasion sexually abused me throughout my childhood. He rarely hit me. That was my mother's department. She had a quick temper and a pronounced tendency towards violence and would go from mere spanking to hitting, slapping, beating me with objects, throwing cutlery at me, resulting in a severed vein in my foot when I was fifteen (there was a lot of blood) and once when I was eleven even ripping my shirt off my back in front of visiting friends of hers. My older brother was also violent and for years I was going to school every day covered with bruises thanks to his beatings.
My mother and I eventually became friends once the beatings stopped when I was a teenager and of course, long ago I forgave her. My brother and father continued to despise me. Carrying this kind of baggage I went out into the world on my own at the young age of eighteen. My mother was busy trying to leave the abusive alcoholic with whom she was living and my father hated me so I wasn't going to be welcome in the home that he shared with his girlfriend I was scarcely prepared to meet the challenges of having to fend for myself. To my surprise I was able to pull it off, though I was never able to find work that paid more than just a little above minimum wage, neither was I able to finish university because of the stress and the expense. This was all part of the twin legacy of complex PTSD and surviving my parents' divorce when I was thirteen.
Despite all odds I've done okay. I am still poor, but I work in a profession that I find rewarding, as a mental health peer support worker and I have experienced a thorough recovery from my mental health issues. I live in a decent apartment, government subsidized of course, otherwise I would likely be on the street. I would also say that I have flourished as an artist, even though you will not find my paintings in any major or minor galleries and I have become something of a world traveller. I have also become fluent in Spanish. Considering all I've had to cope with and sort out throughout my life this has not been a bad outcome and things indeed could have turned out a lot worse.
I will even go so far as to say that my life has turned out better as a result of having had complex PTSD.
Let me explain: This in no way justifies the abuse that I suffered nor does it let the abusers of the hook. It was a horrible and horrendous experience and the consequences have been extensive. But complex PTSD, for all its debilitating influence, also opened me up. I was like a broken vessel, like the alabaster container of fragrant ointment that the sinful woman, traditionally Mary Magdalene, broke open to anoint the feet of Jesus. I was broken open. The consequences were less than pleasant: I was hyper-sensitive, vulnerable to more abuse, and lacking in self-confidence and self-esteem. I was easily victimized and went from one toxic relationship to another. But my brokenness taught me empathy. My vulnerability made me open spiritually and I became deeply interested in the welfare of others. My creative gifts also came to find expression and I found myself drawing out my creativity as an essential tool for my healing.
I think that in our ambitious and avaricious hyper-commercial culture we are taught to be tough, ruthless, competitive and brutal. The broken, the weak are cast aside, but we, the broken and the weak, also possess the real gifts of beauty, art and healing without which the rest of us cannot survive. Never underestimate the hidden value of pain and suffering. They are not goods in themselves but they can also be instrumental in reforming and rebuilding our lives as authentic human beings as broken vessels bearing exquisite treasures and costly fragrance. Only the really vulnerable are also truly strong.
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