My Humble and Not So Scientific HSP/ Trauma Raised Declaration (I’d say Manifesto, but this term has taken on a nasty connotation)

Those who feel they know all about me are wrong. There are many issues, many  memories not spoken about to anyone. And that’s okay, since it’s not my duty to do so. Freedom of speech, I believe, also means freedom to not to have to share a traumatic past.

The research findings that trauma can change your genes has impacted me greatly. Things I cannot write about even yet–I know they have changed me at the most basic level. Period. I don’t want to hear that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Save that platitude. Sometimes that which doesn’t kill you changes you in profound, basic, even cellular ways depending on the person you are. I don’t talk about a lot of things because people tend to judge–oh, just get over it. Aren’t you over that by now? It didn’t kill you; you must be stronger.

No. Not me. Take a very HSP (highly sensitive) kid to start with and add decades of certain things and no. No, those didn’t make me stronger.

They did help make me more compassionate for I know I was deemed smart, competent, friendly but shy during these years. How wrong they were, but how well I acted. I know that others can be suffering greatly and appear all good.

They did help me realize how complicated life can be, how many issues people face, and without adequate resources and guidance, people can make unwise and unhealthy choices.

I don’t want to hear that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. Don’t go there with me.

This is my declaration: let people heal and deal as best fits them. Don’t belittle or dismiss. Don’t be disdainful or snarky. Or sarcastic. Choose kindness.  You don’t know what others might be going through, for no one knew what I was going through–I was and remain a terrific actress.

That which doesn’t kill you can change you on a basic level, I believe.

I don’t want judgments about this, I don’t want platitudes or pity or a pat on the back.

And when I wish to, if I ever wish to, I will write about it. It will help me with deep rich and dark topics to write about–when and if I choose to write directly about them.  I am a poet and fiction writer, and my past traumas do very much inform my writing, so I am already “telling my story” in my own way.

One last thing. That which does not kill you can sometimes help you see great preciousness in love, which I’ve found to be the great helper of healing. And nature. And beauty. And literacy. And learning. And a profession.

Those who feel they know all about me are wrong. There are many issues, many  memories not spoken about to anyone. And that’s okay, since it’s not my duty to do so.