treasuresdocuseries - Tumblr blog

treasuresdocuseries · 1 month

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Dear Survivors, You Didn't Sacrifice Yourself. You Were Murdered.

They've nailed you to a cross and slashed their rage and loathing upon you, speared their pettiness and greed through your person, traced their shame and hurt across your flesh. Believing, somehow, that you must be deserving. Determined, somehow, that this will relieve them. Convinced, somehow, that this is love.

The red runs down, drawn as if by instinct, to the eyes of the spectators, the opinion of the bystanders, the judgment of the witnesses...where they always seem to be, awestruck in praise of your agony. If only enough blood could pool at their feet, then their sandals could be stained and the world would know how closely they stood...and greatly they failed.

No amount of love can elevate someone to be something they were never meant to be. Your life was never a cure for their sickness. Their tragedy was never an excuse for your torture, and the world's choice to revere instead of rescue was never validation.

Don't die on this hill.

Come down from the cross.

It was never meant for you.

#emotional health #believe survivors #mental heath support #human trafficking awareness #trauma support #trauma survivor #martyrdom #scapegoat #abuse recovery #trauma recovery #blood #self compassion #mental heath awareness #reframing #treasures docuseries #survivors #healing #mental health

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treasuresdocuseries · 5 months

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It's my 3 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳 New posts coming soon to kick off the coming year!!

#3 year tumblrversary #tumblr milestone #anniversary #3 years #writing #blogger #mental heath support #spring 2024

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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Thank you to everyone who got me to 500 likes!

#500 likes #tumblr milestone #thank you

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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#healthy relationships #looking for someone #unknown quotes #life advice #relationship #face your fears #words of wisdom #relationship dynamics #emotional wellbeing #partnership #friends and family #find your people #human connection #soulmates #find your tribe #work together #life quote

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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50 posts!

#tumblr milestone #50 posts

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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Dear Survivors, Feeling is Overwhelming.

However well-meaning the layperson or advocate may be, their sincerity can be as overwhelming as it is relieving. The interactions that should have been genuine and kind, were used to manipulate and trap you. The men who should have walked away and called the police, used you for their fantasies of violence. So this person who wants to pay for your coffee, hold open the door, ask for directions, likes your shoes..."What if they want something from me? What if they're lying? What if I believe them? What if this is the first step back down the road I barely escaped?"

The need for BOUNDARIES becomes paramount.

You've borne the brunt of other's trauma and apathy long enough, either living in numbness or overload to survive their emotions. You had to find an equilibrium with pain to defy death on so many levels. The greatest challenge now is evolving out of this hypervigilance: Your feelings do and move without permission or consideration, living apart and independent from any sense of familiarity. They can be selfish things, but a wonderful part of your healing is allowing these feelings to be selfish on behalf of your RECONSTRUCTION.

These feelings...they care about you, about your safety, even as they startle and run wild. There's no room for guilt once you realize this sincerity. All you need are fences strong enough to corral these feral feelings: just enough boundary to coax them back into view without inhibiting the warmth you want to build with the world. Oh, how more EASILY SAID THAN DONE.

YOU are the only face your feelings should recognize in the mirror and the first hand they trust to steady their rages. We can never say enough that it will take time, as healing always does, but aloneness with oneself is the FIRST STEP to trusting yourself. YOU are the most important person in YOUR world right now.

FEEL THAT.

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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Dear Survivors, You Can Make Pearls <3

As soon as an oyster is born, their shells start to form; proteins and minerals wrap around them and enlarge as the oyster grows. This formation is natural: needed for the protection of any young new to a world of mystery, and the same is true for YOU. However young or old you may have been, you were exposed to a side of the world we thought disappeared, one of the deepest pits of human depravity: SLAVERY. A shell that should have grown gradually under love's watchful eye, now roughens with haste from an existential betrayal so deeply opposed to your personhood, the friendly fire of your own mind makes your hopes and dreams daily casualties of liberation.

But did you know that a pearl forms when an oyster senses a wayward object in its mollusk? The animal senses the irritant and coats it with layers of aragonite and conchiolin...

and these two substances that create its pearl are the SAME materials it used to build its SHELL!

Shells aren't made in a day, anymore than a pearl, and sometimes from fortitude much of the world won't recognize or appreciate. But your capacity for BEAUTY is ELEMENTAL! Scribed even within the gorgeous language of nature itself to create it, to display it, to nurse and cherish it in the nooks of an inner world without a soul to see or covet. Pearls are miracles of your resilience, the Crown Jewels of your survival, convictions of worth NEVER to be cast before swine!

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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Dear Survivors, Just BREATHE.

It is the earliest connection we have with our body and the first relationship between ourselves and the world. After all, the newborn's FIRST instinct is to BREATHE: a need more instantly vital than light, drink, sleep, warmth, or love. Existence solidifies, moving away from theoretical and abstract to something tangible and present within our own consciousness. We become distinct from surrounding creation, yet immediately and intimately dependent on it, both blurring and drawing the line between US and OTHER.

Communication within and as individual ensues in that first breath: Every organ and cell signaling with and to the other in healing, death, and change. Familiarity of this exchange — of the LIFE within us, encircling us, leaving us, and returning to us — this mindfulness of breath, bears witness to the miracle of survival. Your trauma is still real, and you will always need time...But you are ALIVE.

You are still HERE. And this fear, as you live and breathe, has NOT overcome you.

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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Dear Advocate, Tears are Part of Recovery.

Make the best of it? Look on the bright side? Such things are shallow comforts, arrogant in the face of those fighting for survival, losing their innocence, and escaping with only the breath in their lungs. The taste should be metallic to the advocate's tongue, like sandpaper on the lips of any who say such things. What good could there possibly be in being abused and used and commoditized? For a person's cries to be auctioned and their screams to be sold? Stay positive? It could always be worse? Such nonsense! What good can there be in looking for the sun without a boat to weather the storm?

Recovery begins in the shambles, in the destruction of what someone thought people and the world to be.

Buried under the rubble and wandering among the ruins; the debris is crushing and rough underfoot. For some, the callouses are thick enough to numb. For others, the soles are raw and bleed. Their eyes will remember the sting of ash and soot, and the smell of smoke will linger in their nostrils. They may find belongings in the wreckage, but only some may be salvageable. Such inevitabilities are no threat to recovery. We shouldn't stand in the way of your grief. We shouldn't dread your tears. We shouldn't fear your sadness...

The only threat to healing is DENIAL.

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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Dear Survivors, Abusers are Complicated.

It would be satisfying to say an abuser will never deserve grace, especially when they certainly never showed it you or took full advantage when you did. What then could we possibly mean by this controversial statement? It means that ABUSE MATTERS, no matter who it is done to. No one should be so bold as to always expect tears for abusers, least of all from their victims, but PAIN is a phenomenon that travels. It is one of the most insidious realities to live among us, so easily transmuted and transferred across every cell in our bodies.

Knowing their story isn't meant to garner sympathy for its own sake but to focus your fury onto ALL deserving parties involved in the pathway of pain that ended with your life in the crossfire. Is there an excuse for what your abuser did? Never, but RARELY does an abuser learn their behavior without an example or teacher. These figures get to remain in the shadows, turning a victim's personal responsibility into their own weapon of denial. We must DENY them that weapon! However irresponsibly someone treats their pain, it remains REAL and deserving of respect. Without such respect, we create a system in which even survivors are complicit of apathy.

Never lose the ability to show grace.

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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Dear Survivors, It's Worth It To Be YOU.

What should freedom mean to you now?

You've dreamed of escaping your trafficker: the captivity and control, the assault of your person, and the abuse of your soul only to come back to where you were before. Loneliness is what you've endured for so long, even in a room full of friends, a house full of family, and a city of thousands, only to find yourself alone in the most intimate place of your world: YOUR BODY. You were rescued, you've escaped, you survived, but what good could it do you now to be yourself?

Abuse makes personhood seem like a burden, like a stone around your neck better off abandoned before it puts you in danger, makes you vulnerable, and leaves you naked...like it did before. This is the essence of SHAME: the blame of your personhood. Then maybe the question isn't escaping loneliness or punishing wrongdoers, but the forgiveness of self.

It might seem offensive, seeking forgiveness from and for someone who was never at fault for the actions of another, but not all pain is born from what's actually true...only what has FELT true enough to CHANGE you. Do you still think you're at fault for that something? Harder to reason that you deserve peace? Then perhaps reason doesn't have to factor at all: FORGIVE YOURSELF. Forgive yourself whatever you think you should have known, should have seen, should have done, should have felt, should have said, should have been.

Forgiveness depends on nothing and no one except the desire to be FREE.

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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Dear Survivors, Band-Aids Have Purpose.

We've been told to stay away from band-aids, that they do no real good for healing but that isn't entirely true. Band-aids were never meant to be a cure, that's TRUE, but they ARE meant for protection.

These little strips, however disposable in the end, are what open the window between hurt and healing, take the breath between tears and smiles, create the space between pain and relief, and shelter the cuts from dangerous debris surrounding it. Airing out our pain is a MYTH.

Merciless exposure to the elements at our most vulnerable kills something in us, but covering our wounds maintains the natural defenses that keep our hope alive...and a wound that heals with hope is less likely to leave a scar. Band-Aids are meant to give our bodies the time and safety they need to reconnect the severed strands that bleed us, cleanse the poison that weakens us. Ripping off that protection will feel uncomfortable, but in the end, a band-aid didn't heal you...

YOU healed you.

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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Dear Survivors, You Have a Choice Now.

There are so many factors of our early lives we are not accountable for and yet accountable for what our lives have been. No one chooses their parents or their neighborhoods. No one chooses their histories or their race. No one chooses their class or the culture. But every one of these things decide the foundation of a person's life: the fortunes that fool them into safety, the wars that draft them into soldiers, the neurosis to haunt the rest of their days. It would almost seem that some lives are crafted with more care than others, but humanity is a genre composed by the personhood of every author... and your pen will never run dry as long as you breathe!

Your story is not over.

There's still so much that you can't control, but you were BORN with that pen in your hand. It's an unalienable possession of unimaginable proportions! Until now, you've dragged your pen through a maze of abuse, ink seeping behind like a blood trail, mapping the few ways to safety in a network of uncertainty. The ink may be dry...but CHANGE comes by the formation of intention. Every slosh can be shaded into the larger picture. Every scratch can hatched into greater depth. Fill these lines with nuance, with the emotional hues your reflection deserves. You are more than a writer...

You are an ARTIST.

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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Dear Abusers, We Are Not Punching Bags.

Punching bags don't have feelings.

They can't say no. They can't complain. They don't flinch or run. They don't scream or cry. They take whatever you give them and wait for more. Hanging there, numb and still to await your rage, your lust, your loneliness, your sadism, your apathy, your excuses. With every hit, YOU grow stronger, more resolved, more convinced of your dominance. What more could an abuser want for themselves than something to strengthen their grip over the dignity of others?

You think punching bags are tough, don't you? Because the only thing under their skin is sand. This is what makes them so perfect to withstand your abuse: the endless capacity to absorb with no ability to feel...the closest thing to DEATH.

How many women have wasted away behind these lies of approval? That touch of comfort you so desperately think you need at the price of her sanity? The theft of her voice? Eroding her dignity as you hold her body ransom? THIS is what you buy.

Does it take any effort for you to reduce her?

Transforming her flesh and blood and bone to leather, sand, and metal? Is the word "WOMAN" simply the brand name of your favorite abuse tool: Always ready, never demanding, and forever silent? The only voice anyone can hear in this exchange is YOURS, filled with pleasure at the merciless infliction of your violence.

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treasuresdocuseries · 1 year

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Dear Survivors, Privacy is Your Right.

It's common in recovery to be told how healing sharing your story is meant to be. We draw attention to ourselves, we make space for our existence, we carve the air with our words as if we hold creation itself within us. It is the true power of VOICE unleashing itself, demanding witness...But the presence of strength is NOT the absence of feelings and the miracle of survival is NOT the absence of damage.

The courage to fight for other survivors should never eclipse the courage you've built to fight for yourself.

Your experience belongs to you and you alone. You reserve the right to reveal whatever you wish to whomever you wish, to withhold an opinion or experience why-ever you please, and go however far in advocacy that is faithful to you. This is the true power of PRIVACY unleashing itself, demanding respect for the person beyond the pain and the price of their courage.

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treasuresdocuseries · 2 years

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Dear Survivors, Love Doesn't Hurt.

It's true.

Love doesn't hurt. LOSS HURTS. The loss of compassion and respect, the loss of boundaries and apology, the loss of innocence and identity...THIS hurts. The slow erosion of safety, the merciless theft of your loyalty, the treacherous lies of their affection...THAT hurts. The trauma you suffered, the abuse you endured, the change pain has forced you to undergo...THIS hurts. The attention you believed they gave in interest of your wellbeing only to be currency in the invisible contract for your enslavement...THAT hurts. Loss of who you hoped they'd be, loss of who they'll never be, loss of who you were before them...THIS hurts. LOSS HURTS, it's true.

But all that LOVE is still inside you.

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