When I was 22, I was operated on to remove a large ovarian cyst. Keyhole surgery and back home that afternoon was the suggestion; instead I nearly died.<\/p>\n
The operation did not go as planned and I had to have four blood transfusions to replace my significant loss. I was a week in hospital and it was several months before I felt my strength return on so many levels.<\/p>\n
During my recovery at home (if memory serves, just a few days back from hospital), I became upset when my mother left me alone in the shower to answer the phone. I couldn’t lift my right leg more than a few centimetres off the ground and I felt trapped within the high bath sides. My mother returned to find me in floods of tears. She sighed and told me that I was getting a ‘victim complex’.<\/p>\n
What I really had was PTSD.<\/p>\n
My mother’s family and background is one of army and boarding school, so I fully understand that she had been raised to have that stiff, British, upper lip and empathy was not a trait much nurtured, but wow those few words smacked me hard.<\/p>\n
They spun around my head for years and years trying to tally with the way I had felt post that operation (and all the others shifts that had been made because of it – change of job, country and relationship). I believed my mother. I believed I was not handling my trauma ‘well enough’.<\/p>\n
What I also noticed over those years was how invested I was in telling the story of my operation. It felt like such an enormous part of who I was; I would drunkenly insist on revealing my physical scars to all those that listened; it became an excuse for all my failings – weight, relationships, jobs. Most telling of all, I could barely recount the full story without feeling like collapsing into unending tears.<\/p>\n
It was only when I began to explore the world of healing that I started to empathise with that younger self and the overwhelm I had been dealing with. I realised that without the right tools and support I had been left with two choices, the stiff upper lip of denial or the Groundhog Day story that defined me completely.<\/p>\n
But there is a space in between denial and holding on to the story, neither of which serve, and that place is one of healing. That delicate place of acceptance – something happened to me and I was a victim without becoming victim to that trauma. I think that nuance is key to addressing how trauma can be honoured and processed and also crucial to moving beyond the potential to remain fixed in a story that can inhibit growth and vitality.<\/p>\n
That space is one of liberation and is the right of everyone and<\/em> it is a space that needs to be consciously chosen and strived for. It is a doorway that requires effort and application to open. It is not easy nor is it meant to be.<\/p>\n As Scott Stabile’s quote says ‘…I could survive it. It wasn’t comfortable, but it didn’t destroy me.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was 22, I was operated on to remove a large ovarian cyst. Keyhole surgery and back home that afternoon was the suggestion; instead I nearly died. The operation did not go as planned and I had to have four blood transfusions to replace my significant loss. I was a week in hospital and … Continue reading “Victim Complex”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[88,82,85,19,87,12,89,83,86,26],"class_list":["post-679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holistic-health-emotional-healing","tag-metoo","tag-abuse","tag-denial","tag-healing","tag-liberation","tag-love","tag-ptsd","tag-recovery","tag-sadness","tag-victim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":686,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions\/686"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}