3 years in 3 months <3

May 2021,

Recently, I passed the five-year mark of “the night.” I became part of the 97% five years ago, and that sounds weird but I also know a lot of people who call it an anniversary, and honestly I could not think of a worse word for myself. Anniversaries are just so happy and celebratory. I know this is a moment of growth and shit and I’ve come such a long way in the past half decade, but the last word I want to use to describe the day of my assault is an “anniversary.”

Every year I have such different emotions, reactions, and thoughts leading up to it with my subconscious telling me different things and putting me through different flashbacks. The only constant is that every year I don’t know what to expect. I’ve forgotten within the two weeks before the date, but I’ll feel myself going through a lot of darker deeper emotions and catching myself about to spiral. I’ll wonder why this is happening, hoping that it’s just mercury in retrograde or right before my period having an off week, and then I realize that day is coming up.

A common trend with a lot of my past is that my subconscious puts me through the “Anniversary Effect” (had no idea there was a name for it until last year) but it’s literally that. Just unsettling memories and feelings that come up from the past, and sometimes you can track down the traumatic event of why you’re going through these feelings. Whether it’s the date of an accident or death anniversary, or even the season of the year when you experienced something heavy, living with that schedule of emotional experiences that keeps track of time becomes difficult.

This was something I haven’t really written about or posted anywhere but despite my closest friends knowing, there’s never been any way to prepare. This year was unlike any in the past where I’ve taken days to myself to feel my innermost feelings and flashbacks, whereas other times like year three, I celebrated myself with dinner and drinks with my best friends to remind myself that I’m worthy of a good time. It was a little nudge that I’m deserving and although there’s no way I ever am able to prepare for it, it reminded me of who I have become since then. Everything I’ve let go of and grown into sat so strangely with me as we were quarantined last year for year four, but this year on the fifth year mark I just sat there at a complete blank with no reaction.

Five years, five whole years.

At five years old you go from newborn to toddler, you start school, and you go from fifth grade to 10th grade. In five years you go from being a minor, to being able to drink, to being able to rent a car, to the age your friends start having kids.

Five years is a long time, and five years is half a decade and honestly I don’t know how to wrap my head around that. I’m 23 years old and I still think I’m 18 sometimes and maybe quarantine played a large role in that, making time a bit skewed for me. It could also be that I didn’t have a senior year of college for the transitional period into the real world, but five years is still five years and all of that is still so odd to me.

I had been taking this time to try to process who I am and if I’ve become anything in five years but honestly didn’t feel much. Nothing celebratory or sad, just a normal girl thrown into the real world, making sure she’s not just living for the weekend anymore.

Not being under that college bubble anymore made this time around incredibly different while also figuring out how to navigate that with the advocacy and awareness part of my life with being a big kid working her first post grad, city job in her 20s.

June 2021,

I know my trauma is not me but it’s something I’ve absolutely come to terms with and tried to find purpose with. Looking back, the first wave of quarantine was when I spent most of my time healing more than I thought I ever could. I think being alone in my room forced me to face my demons and looking back, I’m nothing but proud of myself for pushing through that.

This platform was built to help others by expressing how I navigated my low points, but right now my life is pretty consistent and I can finally see and feel my growth, knowing that I'm in the best place I've ever been, in all aspects of my life.

July 2021

It’s been exactly a month since I wrote all of that and I wanted to give it time because I got off the pill at the end of May and now I can confidently say it was probably the best decision I’ve ever made physically and mentally for myself. Although there’s plenty of physical traits which I’m so thankful for, like my skin not being sensitive or finally being able to lose weight, the biggest blessing has been that my mental health has completely done a 180.

I know I can only tell so much from these first few months, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. It feels like a fog has been lifted off my shoulders and I can taste and smell things again (metaphorically not in a covid way lmfaooo). The long term effects were slowly building up while I was on the pill and looking back I finally understand how much it hindered my growth. Although I’m so proud of who I became in the past few years, I finally feel like I can see clearly and think freely. This was a huge missing piece of my recovery. I’m not scared to be in my head anymore or feel like I’d wander into a dark place. I know stopping birth control is not the solution for my healing and trauma, some things I'll live with forever, but in this past month alone I haven’t gone to “that place” or felt like I was being constantly stalked. I don’t cry myself to sleep because I’m hung up on the past and wondering. I just feel lighter all together and feel like myself again after SO many years. This life, state of mind, and happiness is one I could only dream of before, so this is your sign that it’s absolutely possible to get to that place in life and that things can do get better.

thank YOUU for making it 3 years deep into the pri project <3

im forever grateful