The Decision to Step Out
When I went to France to study abroad years ago, it was for an intrinsic reason only. I’d always wanted to study abroad there since high school. I wanted to do more than just sit in a classroom and learn bits and pieces of the language. I wanted to experience the culture more in depth. So, during my graduate years of college, that’s what I did. Yet, I did so without a support system and instead of making the process easier, there were many around me that either made it harder or tried to dissuade me with their words. This (in a small way) contributed to my depression.
Stepping Out
The process wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t easy either. You can read more about what that process was like, but once I arrived, it was a whole didn’t ball game.
Safety
Once I arrived, and I was in a safe space, all of the trauma that was stored in my body came spilling out. That was an unexpected part of the experience.
I thought I was going to go to France and continue to just keep going like I had been for the previous 20 years, but that’s not how trauma works. I’d been in a continuously traumatizing and dangerous space for a long time; so, when I finally made it a point to step out and into something better, God delivered me to a safe place through a seed he’d planted in my heart over a decade earlier.
What I didn’t realize is what happens when you get to safe space. I’d been fighting for so long that once in France, my defenses came down because I didn’t have to fight anymore. Then all of the trauma that was stored in my body started to come out immediately. It was like I was bleeding all over the cobblestones of Aix-en-Provence. I had no boundaries. I felt lost, sad, and overwhelmingly hurt emotionally.
Change of Environment
Sometimes, I disagree when people tell you to deal with what’s happening internally before stepping into the world. Sometimes, the world that you’re in is toxic and that’s the reason why you might need to move, because you’re not where you’re supposed to be, and that new space is the better space for you.
Freedom
France gave me the freedom to run around what felt like the whole of Europe and just figure it out. I healed unintentionally, engaged in play, explored a new beautiful environment, and I let my pain leave me. I didn’t really have a choice. It wasn’t a smooth process though.
Real Life
It wasn’t easy. Everyday, I had suicide ideation and I would fantasize about different ways to take my life. I was figuring out studying abroad, participating in a program that was strict about attendance. If we had three unexcused absences, we were kicked out of the program. I was navigating how to have relationships which is hard to do when you’re down and out. I also had severe CPTSD and everyday felt like a fight for my life.
The Perception
It was hard, one of the hardest things in my life. On Instagram, I remember people commenting on my photos saying how happy I looked, but I wasn’t happy at all. I was happy to be where I was, but I was in such pain. Even as I began healing, it wasn’t linear. I would take two steps forward and then be drawn to things and people that reminded me of my past and take three steps back. Then I’d push away from them as well, oscillating between healing and returning to what I was familiar with.
Healing
The pain was so overwhelming that it made me have empathy for the people that choose to smoke their pain away, drink their pain away, drug their pain away, and all of the other ways people choose to numb themselves because that healing process isn’t a joke. Yet the other side of it is so much better than sitting in your own blood, and I would never want to continue to sit in my shit, because there is no life there.
God
And how good is God that he allowed me to heal in the beautiful South of France? The timing isn’t lost on me that something that I’d wanted to do since a teenager wasn’t happening until my late 20’s, but it was happening at the right time. It was happening when God allowed it to happen to best suit his purpose. Stepping out was the best decision that I’ve made thus far, and I can only be so grateful that God allowed it to happen so that I could become better while also contributing to his plan and making the world just a little bit better.