Baggage

Doesn't it always seem like characters on television with "baggage" get to move on once they've talked about it? They make some sort of emotional breakthrough followed by tears, hugs, and things starting to mend. I'm clear on the fact that things depicted on Private Practice aren't exactly factual. It's just how I expect it to be.

Talking about unpleasant things does make things feel better, right? I feel like it does. Verbalizing the trauma releases something. It releases that feeling in my chest, that weight. Why, then, do I have residual "baggage"? Why, after all the talking, expressing, searching...why do I still feel...ashamed? I'm not even sure if that's the right word. It's guilt, or something like it. Maybe I need to talk to a therapist. Maybe just telling isn't enough to deal with everything.

I'd really hate to think that being molested as a child has to haunt me until the day I die. I mean, I'm thirty. It's been twenty-two years, and I have daily reminders of the damage done to me all that time ago. Done to me. I know I was a victim.

Fault does not lie with me, I know. I tell myself that I was too young to understand what was going on. But why do I tell myself that at all?! It's like deep down I think it was my fault. Somewhere deep down I must believe that I'm somehow guilty. I should have told someone. I should have known what was happening was evil, and screamed my lungs out. Instead, I what? Zoned out? Didn't understand? Buried it?

I blocked it out for eleven years. Whatever that means. I understand that it was something unintentional that took place in my brain, and it happened as a way to cope. I know that, and I'm thankful that I've dealt as well as I have. I'm actually a happy person. I'm married, have friends, and do what I love every day. Still, though, I feel like blocking it out hindered me from making it stop.

My abuse started when I was around three years old, and it stopped somewhere around eight. That's when my mother and I moved ten or so hours away. I have no idea how many others were hurt in all that time, besides me, because I unconsciously shoved what was happening to me into a dark corner of my head.

Maybe talking about it helps let off pressure, but it just builds back up over time. I just keep hoping and praying that this "baggage" will one day be lost in transit.