My Personal Narrative.

"discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others."

I wrote this for my creative writing class, but feel it could be useful to some. I will start sharing some of my creative writing pieces too.

Today is the Day.

Let me heal~

My day had been long and painful, a lost friendship, an abusive relationship, and nothing to live for. I had made my mind up… I was gonna do it. I was scared and yet determined. I was in a manic episode and was out of control of my mind, my body, my life...I was lost. On April 2, 2020, I left for a residential treatment with a closed mind. I cried the whole way there. It hadn’t hit me until I got in the car I was leaving. I remember listening to the song Home by Edward Sharpe, and a few lines of that song stuck with me,” Never could be sweeter than with you, And in the streets, you run a-free Like it's only you and me, Geez, you're something to see, Ah, home, let me come home. Home is wherever I'm with you.” This song brings a euphoric feeling to me, and I thought about this song and how I craved to be home. Not as in a house, but home in the heart. Living in a new environment is scary, but when I thought about this song I felt at peace.

Once I got to Newport and checked in I couldn’t stop crying. I was in physical and mental pain... I’ve been on my road to recovery for YEARS, the abuse and trauma I’ve been put through has shaped me to be who I am today. There was one staff member, what we would call Cc’s that helped me understand where my pain was coming from. On my 13 days, we talked about forgiveness. This woman is beautiful, inside and out. When she was explaining forgiveness to me in ways I could apply with my trauma, she showed me a scar she had on her hand. She had to have surgery. After any dramatic change, you need to adjust to that new situation in your everyday life.

Physical therapy, seems dumb to be playing with rice, right? Wrong, it’s the forgiveness for mistakes, the righting your wrongs. Helping yourself in a way nobody could ever help you. Prior, I had been beating myself up by self-harm or substance use because of the UNCHANGEABLE things that had happened. She explained that she had to forgive herself for not taking as good care of herself as she should have been. To help forgive myself I was asked to write a letter to my old abuser saying how I forgive myself, but not him. I cannot/ will not ever apologize for what he did to me. I’m so used to taking the blame for situations that are out of my control. In her analogy, my take out of it was that her hand represented me. An uncontrollable situation, she did what she needed to do, and then on top of that, she learned how to live and cope with it through physical therapy.

Out of the three months' worth of conversations I had at Newport Academy, the one I shared with Sandra, stuck out the most. After sleeping on this conversation I woke up the next morning and applied it. I worked on myself. I cared about myself. From then on, I’ve been doing what I need to do, surrounding myself with people that want to help me practice self-love and acceptance. I have been self-harm free for 6 months. Every day is hard, but I’ve been using my physical therapy on my heart, mind, and soul. The day I left Newport, Sandra checked me out. I looked at her smiling with a tear streaming down her face… she said to me, ‘Madeline darling… I will miss you so much, and am so incredibly proud of all your accomplishments and progress.’ She handed me a beautiful rock, it was small and heart shaped naturally. We had found it on one of our many walks prior… she said she had been saving it and charging it with all the love and hope in her heart. I gave her a hug, and left feeling like my home for the past three months was now just a house.

~ Imperfect Unicorn.