Your Strong Suits

*Warning/Disclaimer* this post contains triggering content. Experiences shared include severe child abuse, domestic violence, bullying, assault, intimate partner violence, pregnancy loss, trauma

In 2009, I was participating in a personal development seminar with 78 other people. The facilitator guided us through a practice which was designed to demonstrate how our strengths rise in the dark. How our most painful moments give birth to our greatest gifts. Our strong suits are created in our weak moments.

According to the facilitator, there are three defining moments in the course of each life and during each of these trials, one of your top three strong suits is born. They are as follows:

The first event occurs before the age of 5 when you learn the world is unsafe.

The second event occurs between the ages of 10 and 15 when you feel you don't belong.

The third event happens between 18 and 24, when you feel alone in the world.

I didn't even need to think about this. I instantly knew which moments created my strong suits. And I want to be clear, my strong suits were born out of trauma. Many participants in my group could identify their moments and they were difficult but not traumatic. Some couldn't identify or correlate moments at all. For me, this exercise gave me access to reframing and recognizing my personal growth. I could see how trauma planted a seed that would later be my asset.

The World is Unsafe

My earliest memory was playing with a toy on the living room floor in my family home. It was one of those toddler toys that has wheels and clicks with movement. I think it was a dog. I was happy in my play. My Father was watching TV and yelled "shut up!" from his recliner. I didn't really understand so I kept playing... joyfully clicking away. He sprang from his chair, placing his hands around my throat and choked me until everything went black.

It was in that moment that I lost my voice and went inward. I began to color and draw. In elementary school, I quickly learned to read and write, opening up a new quiet world to explore. I immersed myself in art and later, photography. So, in that horrific moment, my creativity was born. I found new ways to express myself in this unsafe world. I learned to observe and speak without words when necessary.

I Don't Belong

In 5th grade, after years of living as a tomboy in a neighborhood of boys, I had my first female bestie. My house was across from the county fairgrounds and the week of the big event, my best friend spent the night and we planned to go to the fair together the next day. This was a big occasion for me. The morning after our sleepover, she couldn't find her cosmetic case that held her Bonnie Bell Dr Pepper lipgloss and five dollars. I helped her look for it but turned up nothing. The next day at school, I discovered she had told everyone in our class I was a thief, and I was warned that her toughest friend was going to "kick my ass" after school for stealing. I don't remember all of the details, but I remember the anticipation of the event. Knowing it was going to happen. My home life had perfectly prepared me for being beaten. And that's what happened. After school, the toughest girl in 5th grade jumped on my back forcing me to the ground and started throwing punches into my back, ribs and head while everyone stood around watching and cheering. I didn't throw a single punch. I remember laying there with my face in the dirt; humiliated and crying. When it was over to everyone's satisfaction, I picked myself up, gathered my books and made the long walk home.

When I walked into the house that day, my Father was home. My heart sank. My Father was never home during the week, especially not after school. He took one look at me, my face red from crying, my knees dirty, and asked, "What's wrong with you?" I lowered my head and said "Nothing." He repeated, "I SAID, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!?" I was terrified to tell him I got into a fight at school so again, in a smaller voice I mumbled: "Nothing." He leapt from his chair screaming "WHEN I ASK WHAT'S WRONG, YOU ANSWER ME!" He threw me to my stomach and began striking me. He stretched to grab a coat hanger that had fallen on the floor by the closet and grabbed it beating me across my bare legs (I was wearing shorts). It was my second beating in two hours. I stayed there, face down once more, powerless, defeated with bleeding wounds.

That is the day my integrity was born. That's the day I decided I would seek the truth. I would be fair and just. I would consider there might be unknown details or information. A bigger story. That's the day I committed to treating others the way I want to be treated.

*Update: ten years later, I was helping my Mother move when I lifted a living room chair and heard something rattling inside. I turned the chair upside down and deep in the bottom beside the arm was a cosmetic case containing Bonnie Bell Dr Pepper lipgloss and ONE DOLLAR (not 5).

You Are Alone in the World

I moved into my own apartment at age 18 and I began dating exactly the kind of guy I felt I deserved. Handsome, charming, and powerful on the outside, controlling and mean behind closed doors. At age 19, I discovered I was pregnant. I was an unmarried pregnant Christian and I was terrified. I didn't want to tell anyone. Not long after learning of my pregnancy, my boyfriend assaulted me in anger. He threw me down and I struck my head on the wood bed frame. I miscarried two days later. I was admitted to the hospital due to heavy bleeding, released the next day, post D&C, I returned to my empty apartment. No one to care for me. No one to say "It's going to be ok." I, in fact, felt alone in the world.

In this aloneness, my empathy was born. I vowed to never let anyone feel that alone if I could help it.

My strong suits are creativity, integrity and empathy. What are yours?