Freedom: What Is It?

[Sideways]

This is coming from me at rock bottom. But instead of posting in the Depression forum about how do you get through this, why do you bother, etc etc...

The sole idea that is bouncing around in my head offering some semblance of hope, meaning, is the idea of Freedom. Through the generations, the fight for "Freedom" has been hard fought for by all sorts of groups of people, for all different reasons, from different types of oppression...

As a trauma 'survivor' (work in progress), I'm thinking that there's something about freedom that's important to me. And that I don't have it, but need it in order to heal, or even just to be a complete person.

Sometimes Freedom is couched in terms of "freedom to do something", and sometimes it's the other way round, "freedom from something".

When I think about Freedom, I feel like I have a geat big hole where I'm entitiled to have something - there's a form of Freedom that I don't have, but am entitled to. Or be free from something that oppresses me, and that I shouldn't be bound by because I am human..

I'm not sure if this makes any sense, but when you think about your Freedom, as a trauma survivor, what is Freedom to you? How would you define it, or express it? Do you have it, or is it a goal, or something you have to fight for? Do you have to know what it is in order to fight for it, or does it just come to you as you heal? Or is there a form of freedom that, as a victim of trauma, I will simply never have?

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Or is there a form of freedom that, as a victim of trauma, I will simply never have?

There's a scary thought eh?

My therapist once said that trauma survivors always seem to keep old thoughts ("it's my fault" or "what they did wasn't so bad" as examples) in the back of their minds but that for the most part it is an area that is not touched. One of those back dusty shelves that's rarely if ever seen.

I think, personally, there will always be a feeling of not being free, to a point. Free physically but most especially free inside my own mind. It's like that cult has a death grip on my brain and is refusing to let go. I think I will always be a prisoner to a point.

I say to a point because I have hope that one day I can live 95% of my life like the remainder of the people in the world.

But today freedom is a hope or a goal. I am in no way free today. And both of my main abusers are dead. It's all in my head. I still feel physically captive. I still feel like I am a dog chained to a post. Like I can't physically move without first having permission to. I know that sounds stupod as I am not chained up anymore. I am not being physically held down in any way. But that's how I feel.

In addition, I am most certianly not free mentally. Not at all. The cult still rules me. It does so less now then a year ago. But it still rules me. I may not he doing to rituals and following along as I was a year ago but their doctrin of who I am based on their "bible" runs through my head still, non-stop.

So def a goal or more like a hope.

 

[ladee]

I am not free from my past.it will always be a part of who I am. A PART OF but not who I am today. If that makes sense.
Where my pure freedom comes in...is I can stop the thoughts that lead to the old behavior that leads me to self harm that leads me to no hope.
It doesn't matter what was said or done to me 'back then'. Not in the sense it dictates my existence today.
The old messages come up. The old thoughts come up.
And yes I have bad days. DAYS.... Not months and years.just days. Sometimes just hours.
I don't have to waste brain cells on those thoughts. But I do invest energy into what triggered me or what my stressors are during that time.
I don't minimize my pain or my experience. Its real and its true.
But so is my healing work. It'd real and it's true.
I am not passivly going into the next day dragging that shit with me. Its part of me. But I don't have to give it any honor.
But I am going to look at things I have done and still do to have a life instead of letting my abusers win.
Maybe it's all crap. Maybe it's an illusion. I don't CARE. I know today..they don't have more power them me.
I don't HAVE to believe them. I just don't have to.
So much hard work! Makes me want to cry how much work I have put into my life.
I am passing on some of my fighting spirit to you Ragdoll. You know how much you mean to me. Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable. But I have hope FOR you.
Lots of love and hugs...ya know..
All that mushy stuff I do. But it's from my heart.

 

[Arebas]

Growing up, freedom was the thing that would come when my family wouldn't depend on me and I could kill myself without hurting them. Then I'd be free.
Now, 30 years later and after three years of therapy, freedom is knowing that I don't need to kill myself to stop serving other people's needs. That I can make choices based on what I need and what I want and I don't have to always put everyone else's happiness first.
Still not there, but i like this idea of freedom better.
Sometimes freedom is thinking that my parents will die before me and I'll have a few years just for myself then. No need to kill myself if I can just wait. And therapy is just a way to get better so that when that time comes, I won't still be a prisoner of the past.
Freedom is a tricky idea.

 

[watundah]

Agree that freedom is escape from symptoms. For me, that would be in the form of fearlessness - learning to trust and baring my heart.

 

[scout86]

I'm going with "Having nothing left to lose."
That can be either quoting Kris Kristopherson or Alexander Solzhenitsyn (the man is most truly free who has nothing left to lose), take your pick. Because, as long as you have something left to lose, the people who want to control you have leverage to do it.

 

[VioletButterfly]

I'm a bit all over the map on this topic, but I think freedom for me is to live without the thoughts and memories which I seem to be drowning in while I flail about trying to keep my head above water, sinking and coming back up gasping day after day.

Thinking of freedom also causes me to consider the bondage I feel. Kind of like Marley, Scrooge's partner, who carries those heavy chains around him when he visits during the dream. Like I'm encircled and drug down by the entirety of who I am and what I've experienced, by people in the world who judge and/or harm, and by my family of origin... Relate 100% with @Arebas with regard to family.

I also have a conception of freedom feeling like I can just "BE" without suffering. That I am a spirit without all of the human baggage and pain. I kind of think that's part of my problem with living in the world - I'm a spiritual being having a human experience.

I tend to go to my faith to help me walk through this.

 

[WildernessScout]

Its sar01/14/17 i am hurting friends...i keep turning to a LUST ADDICTION...cant find HOPE...I GO TO aa 12step groups almost daily,plus i am in a 12 step group called SA...I FEEL TERRIBLE AND HOPELESS... I DONT KNOW WHAT else i can do...please somedofy spend time with me i dont bite..i feel so alone and such quiet desperation to get welll......please help me....

 

[digger]

@WildernessScout it would probably be more beneficial to you to begin a new thread relevant to your needs.

 

[Ronin]

I think freedom is mindset.

As in when I'm in it, it doesn't matter to me - as much - how trapped I'm physically.

When I'm not? It doesn't matter what freedoms and luxuries I have, objectively, as I'd feel bound and trapped and without an escape.

 

[Sideways]

@Arebas - current depressive episode in mind, freedom in the context of euthanasia, or the fredom to end my life, is a very easy version of Freedom for my mind to hit at the moment. Having said that...

This whole concept of 'what is freedom for a trauma survivor' thing got started in my head because for some completely inexplicable reason, I found myself listening to "Oh Freedom" the song on Youtube. Weird, because I'm reeeally not big on the whole Gospel music scene, but since they reference "my lord", and I don't have a problem with the concept of a "higher power" per se, I was able to overlook the God references. Weirder still because I think it may have been the first time ever I've voluntarily gone to Youtube ever...go figure.

Oh Freedom is actually completely irrelevant to my situation because it's an anti-slavery song... But the reference to slavery, ooh, that actually does hit home a little, because one of my T's (helpfully or not) summed up my csa as "So you were taught that you're basically a sex slave...". Er, no, I wouldn't phrase it like that.

Rambling. The point was that while I was mulling on the idea that, fundamentally, I'd like to be free to kill myself because I'm feeling enslaved to my trauma and the damage it's done, here were these people singing about how they refuse to live their life as a slave, and that seemed really tragic. But the jist of the song is that they're gonna fight tooth and nail to enjoy personal freedom, a free life, no matter how badly they've been treated. Freedom was more about the freedom to live a free life, rather than end an enslaved life.

@ladee - definitely never going to be free from the past, can't rewrite the history books. And for me, it feels a lot like what @lostforgottensoul was talking about. The stuff that I was taught, programmed with, brainwashed with - I can't help thinking that stuff is always going to be there influencing the choices that I make, the way I see myself and the rest of the world.

I think that's what I'd like to know I can achieve "freedom" from. In the perfect world, someone would hand me a written guarantee like "Your mind will eventually operate completely free from the damage and influence of what happened to you".

I've been a while in hospital now, so you really will have to excuse the lack of focus. They're letting me out in just over a week, conditional of course on me being able to guarantee my safety by then, so the noggin isn't working at its genius-best right now. I'm trying!

 

[The Albatross]

Freedom is a choice that comes with a degree of uncomfortableness cuz it's not really our "familiar" experience.