Find Love Together – Logan Briana

There are a lot of life-changing events happening within my family this summer. A lot of changes are a reminder that we are all growing up. I tell myself much of the time how I am glad a lot of these changes have been and are happening when they are. I can handle these changes better than I would have in the past.

I used to automatically feel like I was failing at life when my cousins experienced different life experiences. Some experiences where I had myself already accomplished a similar thing. I had no reason to feel the way I did. Growing up in an environment of constant comparing will create thoughts like that.

Some of the experiences that my cousins will be experiencing in the coming months I am not close to experiencing. In the past, I would have felt like I wasn’t good enough because I wasn’t also accomplishing these things. The thing is I didn’t truly want to go where life has and is carrying them. At least not right now.

I have struggled for many years because I wanted to want the path that they were on. If I didn’t have the same path as them it meant I wasn’t trying enough. My path will never look like any of their paths. Some people are going to treat me differently than they treat other members of my family. That is sometimes hard but it is also a part of life.

I come from what I come from. I can’t change how it has shaped me. My cousin got engaged so that led to them watching old home videos. For most of my cousins, it is a positive thing. I had a conversation with one of my cousins about how sad it is to see me in those videos. Specifically, the ones after my mom died. I am completely gone. My body is physically there but other than that no part of me is there. Here are these videos of tons of young kids acting like kids and then there is me just existing. It’s sad. Especially when there are some of me before the death of my mom and I’m this happy child.

A child that died with her mother.

I am thankful that so much of my trauma is in the past but it still comes up. That’s the thing with grief. It comes in waves. A lot of the time it’s more of being reminded of just how much trauma I have endured. I forget about it more than not these days. I have made videos highlighting my trauma and the things I could share feel never-ending. My trauma is crazy let alone if I add any of my parents’ trauma that contribute to how they raised me.

It took me a while to talk about my trauma and begin to process it. It took me years to even be present let alone talk about it. Then I didn’t want to talk about it because I felt like it would and it has been interpreted as me thinking my situation is worse than others. I know some people wouldn’t be able to handle what I have. I also know there are many things that others have dealt with that I wouldn’t be able to handle.

You can’t determine how painful a trauma is. We all feel and handle pain differently. Even siblings who lost a parent would feel that loss differently. Though on paper it would seem to be the same trauma.

When I began to realize that, it helped me to stop comparing my hurt with others. Also, the less comparison the less time spent on things that don’t need my focus. I could spend my energy on other aspects of my healing than believing I have it hard.

As I have shared my story through words and now through videos, it’s taught me ways that can help me and maybe others heal. It’s important to balance embracing the trauma but also learning how to not make it the core of everything. I will never be able to go long without bringing up parts of my trauma because it is so intertwined with who I am. I can’t let that trauma be the basis of everything I do and essentially take control of every part of my life.

I am currently in a time where that trauma is taking more control than I’d like. It is important to feel what the trauma is bringing to the surface. Hopefully, if I let myself feel it then it will be set free from my body. Maybe the more I let out the less control the trauma will have on me in the future.

I once saw a diagram where our pain doesn’t go away but instead, the box around it grows bigger making it feel smaller. Maybe healing is a mix of making our pain smaller by finding ways to let go but also letting that box around the pain grow at the same time.

My cousin likes to say these wise words, “The only constant thing in life is change.” As hard as change can be I like to think most of the time it is more beneficial than not.

“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

Anonymous