Welcome to reflections with Amanda Durocher, a new view advice

minisode series. Hey, beautiful soul. Welcome

to reflections, my new minisode series I'll be offering

on Fridays. I'm really excited about this. This is going to be

different stories, maybe poems, but different writings about my own healing

journey that I've decided I wanted to share through podcast and also through

video. So you will be able to see me actually on Spotify and

YouTube. Very exciting. I don't usually do video, but I thought I'd give it a

try with this one. So please be kind. This is my first YouTube video with

my face in it. So if the angle's not right, I'll figure it out. You

know what I mean? Let's just let's just be kind out there. Anyway,

this is very much a done is better than perfect series. I've actually

wanted to share more stories from my own healing journey for a long time now,

but, you know, I just had a lot of resistance to it. I even felt

a lot of resistance this week. I know this is something my heart's

been asking me to do, but I just I don't know. It's pretty

vulnerable to share my own stories, and, you know, I always fear

that I'm the only one who's been through this stuff. But I actually love to

share because the feedback I get the most

is how much people understand these different experiences I've

had and how I understand the experiences you've had. So today, I

am sharing a story about anger, and it is inspired by

this week's episode where we talked about anger in episode

109 about creativity and how I believe it's okay to

create from an angry place and how anger doesn't have to be preachy. So I

wanted to share this story I wrote, and it's about a time I got really,

really angry and I had no idea how to handle this amount of

anger. And I share it for a few reasons.

1, because we talked about anger this week, but, 2, because I wanna

normalize how strong these emotions can be when you're healing from trauma.

The stories I'm gonna share here are kind of the stories I wish I

heard along the way. You know, I'm always inspired by people who

have overcome trauma, and they look amazing, and they're doing

shit, and they look all put together. That's what it is. They look put together

where I'm really interested also in hearing about how

people haven't always had it together because I know I've made a lot

of mistakes in my life. I've had a lot of hard feelings. I didn't always

know how to process my feelings in a healthy way, and that is something I

had to learn through my healing journey. And those are the kind of stories that

I'll be sharing. So with that, I'll be reading this story that I

wrote. And, yeah, we'll see how this

goes. Let's just jump on in. This story is

called That Time the Guy Who Raped Me Got Engaged and I Lost My Shit.

I throw my phone across the room and scream at the top of my lungs.

What's wrong? What's wrong? Evan, my long term partner, runs into the room out of

breath. I have no words. I curl into a fetal position on the

floor, rock back and forth, and try to breathe. I had been sober 2 weeks

and was new to being with my anger. Currently, the score was anger, 1.

Amanda, 0. I had just been scrolling through my Instagram feed when I saw that

people I knew from high school were with one of the guys who raped me.

They were celebrating his new engagement with a party. Everyone was drinking,

dancing, and laughing. He had 3 things I didn't have, an

engagement, friends to celebrate with, and the ability to drink booze.

Why was I here on the floor of my parents' house at age 29,

frozen in the past, while he gets to be happy? How is this

fair? Where is the justice? In this moment, all I wanted

was a drink. But for the first time in my life, I knew that wasn't

an option. But I didn't know what to do with all this rage. My

therapist always told me that anger is a secondary emotion and it's often used to

cover up a primary emotion. But in this moment, the rage was front and

center. Evan tries to place a hand on me. I hit his hand away.

Do not touch me, I bark. I get up off the floor. I need

space. The 5,000 square foot house begins to feel like a tiny

closet that keeps getting smaller and smaller. I recognize this

feeling. I'm on the verge of a panic attack. I feel as though I am

suffocating. What happened? What do you need? The more Evan worries,

the more suffocated I feel. I crawl to the front door and get

outside. The temperature is below freezing and there's snow all over the

yard. I climb into the snow and stare at the stars, praying that I begin

to feel my body again. Images flash through my mind.

Rage burns my insides like an inferno. I'm surprised the snow doesn't melt

under me. Evan peeks his head out the window. He's nervous. I can

feel it from here. Will he just leave me alone? I can't handle

his emotions on top of my own right now. I'm waiting for the

tears to come, but I continue to only feel the rage. Flashes of the

past fly through my mind. These are the images I used to bury with a

glass or sticks of wine. I see myself pinned down, beaten. Too much. I

am feeling too much. I grab snow and begin building mini snowmen. I

then smash the tiny snowmen with my hands. I see the boys who violated me,

the ones who beat me into submission. In this tiny snow world, I am the

queen and I demolish them. Today, this is the only power I

have. I begin to feel my body and myself again when Evan opens the

door. Amanda, why don't you come in? It's just too cold to be outside.

Jesus Christ, I mutter. I get up. The rage is back. I stomp

past him. I begin pacing back and forth. I can't control the images

flying through my head. I debate smashing my head against the wall. I don't know

how to make this stop. My mind jumps between flashbacks, despair, and

reminders that as I am here, the guy who raped me is happy in

getting married. Evan stares at me with a look of concern mixed with

confusion and terror. The old me would have poured a glass of wine and smiled

and said, I'm fine. This new me is unhinged. She can't even fake

a smile. It takes all of me not to scream at him. As the

rage continues to boil over, I remember a set of plates I just bought at

Walmart. When I first went sober, I bought a set of dinner plates with the

intention of smashing them into a garbage can. I'd heard that breaking glass

intentionally could be therapeutic. When I heard this, I thought it sounded like a

fun activity. How naive I was just 2 weeks earlier,

completely unaware of the amount of rage I had pent up inside me.

Leave me alone, I seethe at Evan. I grab the plates and

storm down into the basement. The basement is unfinished and feels like the kind of

place where a ghost would reside. I feel right at home here. The amount

I'm feeling feels too much for the living. It feels like only feelings the dead

would understand, those who are angry that they have died too young while

others still get to live. I put in my headphones and blast Lincoln

Park in the end on repeat. I drag a trash can into the center of

the room and begin smashing the plates as I scream obscenities. As

each plate shatters, I feel relief course through my body. Each plate

resembles how I feel on the inside, shattered and broken. As the

plates smash and my voice becomes coarse, the tears finally come.

I fall to the floor and sob. My therapist was right. The rage was

covering up the deepest pain I had ever felt, the heartbreak of innocence

lost. So that is my first story.

Thank you for joining me for this first episode of Reflections, a

newbie advice minisode series. And I hope you enjoyed

this story, and I look forward to seeing you next week where I

share another story from my healing journey. Thank you so much for tuning

in and I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode. So either

leave a comment on the episode or feel free to message me on

Instagram where I rarely ever am but I will get back to you eventually. I

promise. Or send me an email at contact at newviewadvice.com. Thanks

so much. See you next time.