I THOUGHT I NEEDED TO BE FIXED

By Javan McGriff

For a long time, I thought something was wrong with me.

I didn’t have the words for it when I was younger. I just knew that I felt different. Lost. Broken. Confused. Lonely, even when people were around me.

Some of that started when I was very young.

Between the ages of seven and eleven, I experienced sexual abuse multiple times. When I was ten, I was attacked by two pit bulls. A couple of years later, I was bullied from middle school into part of high school.

I was a child trying to carry things that no child should have to carry.

But I didn’t know how to talk about any of it.

As a young boy, I wasn’t taught how to process trauma or express what I was feeling. I didn’t know how to release anger, fear, shame, or sadness. So I learned to suppress everything.

I suffered quietly.

Eventually, those experiences followed me into adulthood. I struggled with PTSD, anxiety, social anxiety, OCD, and depression. There were times when I felt so disconnected from myself and the world around me that I wondered if I even deserved to exist.

I didn’t understand that what I was experiencing was connected to what I had survived.

I just thought I was broken.

During college, I found myself partying heavily. I drank and smoked to the point that it made me sick. Looking back, I can see that I wasn’t really trying to have a good time.

I was trying to escape.

I was trying to numb the things I didn’t know how to feel.

Eventually, I reached a point where I realized I couldn’t keep living that way. I remember feeling incredibly powerless, but somewhere inside of that powerlessness, I made a decision:

I wanted to heal.

I didn’t know what healing was going to look like. I just knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life running from myself.

I started hiking. I meditated. I spent more time alone with my thoughts. I started searching for answers through spirituality and eventually developed a deeper connection with Christ.

It wasn’t an overnight transformation.

It took years.

There were moments when I felt like I was making progress and moments when I felt like I was right back where I started. But slowly, I began learning how to sit with myself instead of running from myself.

That changed everything.

I eventually went to school for a Master’s degree in Psychology because, honestly, part of me thought I was going to figure out what was wrong with me and fix it.

But psychology taught me something I never expected.

I didn’t need to be fixed.

I needed to become whole.

I needed acceptance.

I needed awareness.

I needed to become willing to look at the parts of myself I had spent years hiding from.

I started thinking about my mind like a house. There were rooms inside of me that I had locked away for years. Rooms filled with memories, emotions, fears, and questions I didn’t want to touch.

Healing meant slowly opening those doors.

Not to judge what was inside.

Just to finally acknowledge it.

And somewhere along the way, I started finding myself again.

I remember becoming grateful for really small things.

Seeing a butterfly cross my path.

Watching flowers bloom.

Going outside and feeling present.

Those moments might seem ordinary, but to me they felt extraordinary because I was actually experiencing life instead of trying to escape it.

Then something else happened.

I started creating again.

I started painting like a child.

I wasn’t thinking about whether the painting was good enough. I wasn’t thinking about selling it. I just wanted to create.

Art became a way for me to express things that words couldn’t always explain.

Writing became another form of release.

After completing my Master’s program, I wrote Dealing With Emotions, a spiritual and psychological book designed to help people navigate the emotional battles of everyday life, especially the battles connected to the things we don’t always talk about.

I started a podcast to share free spiritual and practical resources and encourage people who might be struggling.

I became a substance abuse counselor.

And I began professionally selling my artwork, with some of my pieces being displayed and sold through galleries.

When I look at my life now, I realize I didn’t get here by erasing my pain.

I got here by learning how to transform it.

The things I once thought made me weak became part of my strength.

The experiences I wanted to forget became part of my message.

The creativity I had buried came back to life.

And, in many ways, I started healing the little boy inside of me.

The little boy who was attacked.

The little boy who was abused.

The little boy who was bullied.

The little boy who didn’t understand why he felt so different.

I wish I could go back and tell him something.

You were never broken.

You were hurting.

There is a difference.

Today, I don’t believe healing means that you never struggle again. I don’t believe it means forgetting what happened or pretending that everything is okay.

I think healing means learning that what happened to you doesn’t get to decide who you become.

There are still things I’m learning. There are still difficult days. My story isn’t finished.

But I have something today that I didn’t have before:

Hope.

I love life in a way I once couldn’t imagine.

I’m excited about creating. I’m excited about helping people. I’m excited about what might be waiting around the corner.

And I’m grateful for the little things.

I used to wonder if I deserved to exist.

Now I understand that my existence has value simply because I am here.

If you’re reading this and you feel broken, I want you to know something I had to learn for myself:

You may not be broken.

You may be carrying something you were never taught how to carry.

And that doesn’t mean you have to carry it forever.

You don’t have to have everything figured out today.

Start small.

Talk to someone.

Create something.

Go outside.

Take a walk.

Pray.

Write down what you’re feeling.

Ask for help.

Give yourself permission to feel.

And most importantly, give yourself permission to believe that your life can become something different from what happened to you.

I used to think my story was something I needed to escape.

Now I understand that it is something I can use.

My story is still unfolding.

But I’m no longer afraid of turning the page!



TONIGHT

By Gabriela Sanderson

There is a perfect moon rising in the east

and the shadow of the Earth will not touch it.

Once again, a city bus goes into the night,

into the suburbs where behind the windows,

in rooms lit like showcases

people play happy families.

The passengers look haggard, though,

quiet ghosts under the bleaching lights, 

worn by the weight of the day,

work, chores, late supermarket shopping.

Prisoners of long commutes, dozing when they can,

they daydream of pumpkins turned into Mercedes

and Princes Charming waiting

with the dinner ready and the washing done.

Tonight, there are no happy families where they go.

When we get off, tonight, we’ll find

that our house is silent, and it’s dark,

there’s only one dish on the table,

and one glass, and no other voices than our own.

But there’s a moon at least, tonight,

and the shadow of the Earth will not touch it.

SCHIZOAFFECTIVE

By Jackie Chou

Sometimes,

I wish to shut out the world,

the smiles and the waving hands,

to stare through a thick window,

the scene outside muted

like a silent movie,

the trees swaying 

without rustling,

the cars passing

without whooshing,

the people, voiceless,

and even then,

the noises in my head

would not quiet,

shattering into shards,

as I cover my ears

with frantic palms.

ACEDIA

By Heeya

You must think I'm a fool— the child who craves depravity like a soul's soliloquy, like I sanctimoniously ceremonise penchants of chastity like some pendant upon grief; like an anathema of thorns gently piercing me whole, so quietly I don't realise the gushing red arching itself across a viridiscence so grave.

A dent that peaked itself into the corners, cut, creased, flowing belligerently like a presence upon lithe debris; like the paraphernalia of broken tombs I guard with ease, letting their sharp ends poison my senses into some evanescent sacrilege.

A burning so deep, yet so slowly as it seeps, destroying the intricate carvings of the palimpsest within; and there's no evidence of what once was other than the rust that keeps forming over the black biliary treatise.

Like a moth to a flame that keeps darting itself into destroying its existence against its better judgement, listless in its despair, and I pledge a dozen lullabies that carry my grief— the oceans of ice that melted into debris.

An ecclesiastic palinode, perhaps— a lacuna where my sanctity should have remained; or perhaps Acedia, slowly corroding the remnants of all I thought I was.

As I restructure every piece, begging the last memory of my intact sanctity, never knowing the truth of it— for my memories have been huddled and collided in deep, and perhaps there's no memory of how I used to be.

UNTITLED

By Charity Louise

I feel a little left out. Looking back I guess I was. It makes me want to shout. Maybe it shouldn't but it does. Why can't I seem to get it right? Am I missing something? Maybe I'm holding on to tight. Or maybe it's really nothing. Why do they have to stare? What did they say? I wish I didn't care. I'm in complete dismay. Are they laughing at me? Maybe they're just having fun. I wish they could see. I'm coming completely undone. I just want to fit in. I feel so all alone. Do they see my scared grin? Maybe I'm really a clone. Someone please help me. I can't do it on my own. I could sure use a whiskey.

Or maybe a headstone.



ROOM FOR PEACE

By Rachel Stumbaugh

You were never meant to bend yourself into someone else's idea of lovable,

nor to spend your life convincing them to see your worth.

We keep trying to earn love from people

who’ve already shown us they don’t have it to give.

We keep circling the same wound, chasing acceptance,

adjusting our voice, shrinking the truth,

reshaping ourselves

just to find the illusion of love.

They say “you are too much”, “sit down and shut up”, “stay out of the way”.

We explain, prove, chase

hoping they’ll finally meet us where we are,

while they teach us

to apologize for taking up space.

You cannot meet truth

by continuing to avoid it.

They want a conformist,

not a truth-teller.

Silence,

not growth.

Compliance,

not truth.

Love is not supposed to be an illusion.

Accepting reality can be painful,

but there is freedom in no longer fighting it.

Let them misunderstand you.

You were made for safety—

to speak without fear,

to be heard without proving,

to be understood without explaining every wound,

to be fully seen,

fully known,

and still be loved.

Let go of the need to be understood

by those committed to misunderstanding you.

Release what was never yours to carry.

Accept what you cannot control.

Forgive what you can.

Let go of the need to be accepted

by those who require your silence.

And leave room for peace

to find you.

ABOUT RACHEL: Rachel is a Licensed Professional Counselor and has been in practice for 10 years. She works with people who present with complex trauma, attachment issues/disorders, and PTSD. She is also a trauma survivor herself, with PTSD and ADHD, which is why she has such a passion for working with this population. Although she has been through many years of her own therapy and healing journey, she recently found herself in a place of healing the core attachment wounds that were developed, most likely, in her pre-verbal ages (getting to this point can take many years for most). One thing she discovered that has helped her express her thoughts and emotions is writing poetry, and for Rachel, this poem really encompasses the nature of attachment trauma and healing, not only from a personal perspective, but also from a perspective of hearing hundreds of stories just like hers, and hopes this poem is encouraging for others with attachment trauma during their time of healing, growth, and building of self-actualization.