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.