Meet Jess

Queensland, Australia, 46
C-PTSD

I grew up in a dysfunctional and traumatic environment that included abuse, neglect and very unsafe dynamics both within the home and outside.

From a very young age, I developed a deep belief that there was something wrong with me. That somehow, I just wasn’t lovable.

I carried that belief into adulthood. I spent years searching for love in all the wrong places, trying to make people like me, love me, want me.

I tolerated a lot of disrespect and ended up in very unhealthy relationships and narcissistic abuse cycles. I never understood that the way I was treated was wrong. I always believed there was something wrong with me. People treating me the same way over and over again only led to the conclusion that I must try harder to become better. To become worthy. To become someone who would be chosen and loved and cared for.

I adapted. I people-pleased. I tried to become a version of me that would finally earn her right to feel loved and belonging. And somewhere in that I lost sight of who I actually was.

Apart from the many problems on the emotional and relational side there were also a lot of other issues I didn’t know how to cope with.

I always felt like the odd one out, not really belonging anywhere, not fitting in. Feeling deeply alone in my search of the meaningful observations of life. I always struggled to either not connect at all or way too deep.

Things that seem normal for other people seemed like impossible for me. Most things happening around me just didn’t make sense to me.

Early on I developed several unhealthy coping strategies, bulimia was very severe for a long time throughout my teenage years and twenties. My body image was shocking. Sexual abuse only made the way I saw myself worse.

Drugs and alcohol became my way of escaping, soothing, numbing or regulating feelings I didn’t understand and didn’t want to feel.

Then came motherhood and the immigration from Germany to Australia and what came with that is too much to address here, but it added a whole lot of trauma to the mix.

Ultimately, my kids were what kept me going.

A late ADHD diagnosis recently helped me with my overall healing journey and finally explained why some parts of my life had always felt even harder for me.

Slowly, I began seeing the bigger picture:

how everything contributed to one slow continuous burnout resulting in a breakdown that became my breakthrough.

I had spent so much of my life surviving, coping, adapting and trying to be loved that I barely knew who I was without all of it.
Eventually, I reached a point where I knew:
This ends here.
The self-abandonment.
The self-doubt.
The belief that I had to earn love.
The belief that something is wrong with me, that I’m not a worthy lovable person.
The coping mechanisms that were hurting more than helping.
The endless search for my worth in somebody else’s willingness to choose me.
That was the beginning of my healing era.
Not becoming someone new.
Finding my way back to the person I had lost while trying so hard to be loved. ❤️‍🔥

Today I can say I love myself. And I mean it. And I wish everyone can reach that point too.

Connect with Jess @wildestwings_fly