One of the best attributes she learned throughout her trauma and following adulthood was the ability to stand up for herself. She learned how to be outspoken and unapologetic in telling the truth. She learned the ability to reflect on a situation and be able to pick out what the problem is and what needs to be worked on. She even got a compliment from her previous psychologist saying that she should look into being a psychologist herself because she was doing so well. During the few sessions she had with that psychologist, each session she would make tremendous progress in being able to figure out what the problem was and how to make herself feel better. Of course, her psychologist helped her along the way. The most important part of her sessions was the fact that her psychologist unconditionally supported her and told her that her feelings were valid, which gave her the strength to be more confident in how she felt and to stand up and speak up about how she felt. It made her finally believe in herself and her emotions. Emotions are always valid, no matter what emotion is being felt at the time. Usually, anger is a secondary emotion to being hurt. She learned to connect her anger to what was truly hurting her and be able to articulate that in a way to help herself and communicate with others.

Her recent newfound ability to be outspoken and stand up for herself did make her more confrontational and less patient, but she got more things done that way. She is still learning when the right time to be outspoken is, but she finally learned not to wait too long. She finally learned to stand up for herself, to speak honestly. It’s ironic because she used to lie so much as a child to avoid getting into trouble. It never worked because moms always know. Somewhere along her path through maturity, she learned the power of the truth. She also learned that even if the truth hurts, it’s better to be honest. It’s better to face the consequences than lie. It’s better to just get the truth out there and get it over with. There’s no point in holding a burden above your head when you can just out with it and get it over with. It’s also less time consuming to avoid a problem by lying than just telling the truth and getting over it. And she learned her time was precious. Her time and attention had value and there was no point in distracting herself with a problem when she can just confront it and talk through it.

She used to shut down and become coldhearted, heartless, when confronted with a problem or a consequence of her own actions. She used to be such an angry child. Teenagers, right? She used to hide behind a stonewall face and act like she didn’t care. Her brother used to call her a heartbreaker when they were in middle school and high school because she broke guys’ hearts so easily and without a second thought. Hiding behind the façade of “I don’t care” never fixed the problem. The true problem would always come back to face her. It was just quicker to face the problem honestly the first time it comes up and prevent it from happening in the future.

She learned this valuable skill to get her to where she is now and she continues to improve this skill with each hardship she faces. She just wished it was that easy for others.