The other day, I shared an article on trauma bonding on my Facebook page. I don’t know about you but when I read it, I found a lot of myself in it so much that I got shivers down my spine. If you’ve been keeping up with my blog you should know why. Wow guys, I’ve been through a lot. And I knew that, but I just didn’t know how to deal with that knowledge. Well, up until recently of course.

Kier (@Kierandthem) shared a video titled “What I wish I knew before fatherhood” on his Instagram page. In the video, he talks about parenting and building a family. He basically had me deep in my feels when he said “It exposes things about you that you don’t know about yourself. It exposes all of your insecurities. It’s a huge emotional undertaking if you do it the right way. Before you take on a family, go see someone about your past and go see somebody about the trauma that you’ve endured throughout the course of your life and start healing. Because if you don’t heal from that, you’ll have all this and you’ll never be happy.” I couldn’t agree more.

I personally got to a point where I said enough is enough. If my situation is a part of the “generational curse” I’m flipping the script because I’m not having any of it pass down to my children. I have a lot of trauma from my childhood and past relationships which I haven’t quite healed from and their effect is evident in my current relationships. Everyone who has me in their lives is suffering as a result of this trauma. But there’s one person in particular who is forcing me to heal for her sake and that’s my daughter.

I thought I needed to heal from a bad romantic relationship up until I started seeing my therapist. Basically, this woman exposed the rot from my upbringing. I come from a family that doesn’t really talk about issues. We just kind of sweep everything under the carpet and hope the hurt magically disappears. I didn’t realize that this would set the tone for all my relationships. My friendships, romantic relationships and now my relationship with my daughter. I thought my only challenge was the trauma bonding but now here’s a thing called ‘ambivalent attachment’. Please Google it. And if it describes you or a loved one, please see someone who is especially qualified to deal with mental health problems.

Every now and then I’ll be sharing details about my journey to healing from past traumas and reclaiming my mental health. I hope it inspires you to take action. If not for yourself, do it for your children. The South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) is Africa’s largest mental health support and advocacy group. Their website gives access to comprehensive mental health information and resources to help you, a family member or loved one. Find them here http://www.sadag.org/.