Witness Me Preview

There is something about the womb and its design that we don’t talk about. We are all born from it and without it, we wouldn’t exist. It’s the center of human existence. The womb is a sacred place, where all human life is conceived and perfectly created, where the soul is poured into the body, with all the knowledge of the universe. Situated in her center, the womb holds the key to both her femineity and creation and is well protected. When the womb is disrupted by external forces, it cannot create, it cannot function at its best. The conditions have to be perfect in order for conception to take place, and the body will do whatever it can to maintain an environment to ensure that this is possible.

Generational Trauma is also passed down through the womb, and whatever secrets are carried in the family bloodline are held there. When her womb is disrupted, burdened by the traumas in her lifetime, and discarded after its most fragile time, birth, it interrupts who she is at her core, at a soul level, and oftentimes is very difficult to restore. The womb has only one access point, one opening, for life to be both introduced and expelled, the pathway between soul-side and earthside, and when the bridge between these two worlds is impacted, the womb carries the heaviness.

I know this interruption first-hand. I know that soul tear more than anything I have ever experienced in my life. It is raw, real, and everything I didn’t know I could live through but I did, I survived it, and I was healing, until….

Two weeks after my surgery, without any real time to process what the past month and a half looked like, the conversation that had a direct impact on who I would become happened. I never discussed sex with my doctor after my surgery, honestly, it didn’t even cross my mind for a minute. I didn’t have the time to think about what that would be like or if I ever wanted to do it again. I was so focused on just trying to be okay, looking away from the deep trauma that I had just experienced, I was in search of every single healing remedy on the market. I was so focused on healing my flesh that I turned inward as an internal crisis was not an option for me at this point. Then the words came, words that I felt in my bones, one that I was supposed to respond to for his sake and not my own. Those words said something I don’t quite remember, “your doctor said that we should have sex as soon as possible”. Was I not there when my Dr said this, don’t I remember? I’ve often been told that I had a bad memory and that I would forget things, and in the same subtle way, I was reminded that I most likely wasn’t very present when this conversation was taking place, even though, deep down, I fully believe that it never really took place.

I remember shrinking into myself, more afraid than I had ever been about anything in my life. My perineum had torn, and in so doing, my womb was fully exposed, I was fully exposed and had no way of protecting myself from the inevitable. In hindsight, I was nowhere near emotionally and mentally ready to even consider opening my body up in that way. But I did, and it was by far the most traumatic experience of my life.

I lay there, talking myself into why this was important for my marriage, why it was something I would have to do, while my body wasn’t convinced. Every single muscle in my body cringed, clamming up with all its energy, I couldn’t let go of this nagging feeling that this was too much too soon, like nothing about doing this was anything I wanted. I tried to relax, while he climbed on top of me, but then he stopped and considered not going ahead, I relaxed slightly but knew that if I said no, he might withdraw further than he already had all these years, I instinctively knew that there was a punishment awaiting me for denying him what he felt was his to take. I also needed to do this one thing because it would “make” him closer to me somehow. So, I continued and died a slow death while I did. The experience left me empty and lower than I had ever been. I cried in bed that night, alone and with no full understanding of what I had allowed myself to go through. It was just too much to process, too much to connect my core self to my body, too much to allow myself to really understand. I was broken, soulless, alone.

Sexual intimacy would never be the same for me again. From that day on, It took trying everything to get out of my head in order to avail myself In such a vulnerable way. Something I had freely given away in my earlier years was now the hardest thing to even consider doing. At some point, needing some form of substance to “loosen up” seemed like the only way to enjoy it. More so, the distance I had from my body was connected to the violation from the person I was expected to open myself up to regularly. He didn’t even see how I was hurting, and it felt as though he didn’t see any of it. He was there for what I was expected to perform, and I had to open up to him even if it meant a part of me died every single time. I loved this man, so much that I literally gave him every part of who I was. I wanted to make the relationship better, because better was never where it ever found itself, and I was willing to sell my soul to save it. And I did.

Much of what I have learned in this life is that trauma will open you up to a world you would never consider otherwise. You will give up the people and things you love in order to find some sort of acceptance and undervalue yourself often to give the kinds of love you don’t know. For many of these events and experiences, you won't be aware of what and why you are doing it. There will however be a baseline of dissatisfaction because you cannot and will not be meeting your own deepest needs. You will betray yourself a thousand times over and try to be the catalyst for change in as many ways as you can. You will lose yourself before you even find her, you will allow yourself to subtle abuses and let other people talk you into constantly gaslighting the things that you know on a soul level are missing.

One of the greatest lessons I have learned in all my years is one that many of us dare not say out loud, that we shame ourselves into believing isn’t true.

Emotional maturity is not age or label-dependent.

You will find your true feelings and experiences devalued by your parents, family members, and church heads more often than not, as growing older or being handed a title is not dependent on being both trauma-informed and emotionally mature. There is no standard testing in this regard for leaders or parents, but we still hold the belief that these ill-equipped people will have the answers we need, see our pain and challenges and they will support us in the way we need. The truth is they can’t, they don’t have the know-how, and will most likely retraumatize us and find a way to make us believe that it's either our fault or that it isn’t that important. This is how we learn to internalize our experiences; this is how we live a life of perpetual shame and gaslight everything we go through in order to maintain the order that our elders expect. Living longer does not automatically make anyone wiser, unless they have done the self-work, unless they learn to know themselves, unless they recognize that wisdom requires more work and energy than any other learning this life has to offer.

So, I didn’t speak, I didn't say anything to anyone. It took me years to get to a point where I was even able to slowly walk myself through all I had gone through. My experiences were not safe in the hands of those who were meant to be “wiser” than I. I wasn’t safe exploring my core agony to others, I only had myself, and like everything else, I stored it all, in my mind, in my body, in my womb.