The path toward mental health is strickly self defined. There are many roads to travel down, many tools to find. Some roads turn out to be dead ends , while some are so twisting and turning it feels like you never get anywhere. Some roads lead you back to where you were, sometimes time and time again. There are no maps. A map would mean someone has been there before.

Life is like the Pauli Exclusion Principle. No two objects can occupy the same space at the same time. No one can live your life the way you have, or will. No one will ever see things they way you do. Two people can stand shoulder to shoulder, stare at the point on an object and see it differently. It is the slight change in the degree of the angle through which it is seen that creates the difference. No one can see the world through your eyes, It will always look a little different.

I have been experiencing something of an emotional deja va. Old feelings I had as a child, feelings I thought had manifested into resolute adult feelings, have resurfaced. But because I didn’t know they were bubbling underneath the surface, I didn’t know to look for triggers. Finding the trigger wasn’t so difficult once I knew to look for one.

There is always going to be something that calls one back to a childhood trauma. The issue isn’t that I was triggered unexpectedly, the issue is the path I chose to keep the feelings of trauma in check. Childhood trauma is one of the buildings of life for those who experienced it. You don’t who you would be without it. So there is no life except what you built from it.

What I experienced is no less subjective than the way I learned to deal with it. It is my path. My path. Consistent traceable movement through my life. My path is always under my feet, regardless of the direction I am travelling. I know where I have been and from there I can sense where I am going. But it begins and ends with me.

That is not self-absorbtion or self-centeredness. It is self ownership. I am responsible for the highs and lows of my life. I am accountable for the mistakes I have made and take credit for the good. I have struggled through the dark times and found peace in the light. I have owned every moment.

I found what works for me.