01. about this issue — brianne patrice
homebody
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i remember when i moved into brooklyn summer of 2019, it was such a surreal experience for me; fulfilling a lifelong dream. through childhood three things have always been absolute:
a) i wanted to be a writer
b) i wanted to be an entrepreneur and,
c) i wanted to live in new york city (specifically, brooklyn).
and here i was a woman slowly watching her dreams begin to actualize but struggled to enjoy any of it. i moved with such excitement but also had so much uncertainty after years of not being able to provide for and take care of myself. i was uneasy to say the least, a bit lethargic and overcome with fear and emotion recognizing the similarities in my current position and where i had been previously. this was my trauma taking over; this was my trauma telling me that this time would be no different than the last time and that soon enough i would find myself homeless again, couch surfing between family and friends. it’s been 3 years since moving into brooklyn and here i am in my second brooklyn apartment continuing my work as a full-time creative.
we are no longer surviving but are thriving.
as i sat with my feelings one night, i remember thinking upon going to bed, “what the fuck is wrong with me?“ i left that question with my ancestors and spirit guides; communicating with the each of them in my sleep is a forcible practice for me and as i opened my eyes the next morning it was very clear to me that i had been living in a prolonged state of survival mode. that my inability to fully connect and enjoy the positive shifts that were taking place within my life were being overpowered by the years of trauma i was actively coming out of. from 2013 to 2018, i spent so much time just trying to get by. i remember one night, while living in alabama, i had to call my dad, who lived in new jersey, to have him order me pizza at my local hungry howie’s. that was my dinner for the week. so many memories came flooding back, reminding me of all the times i had to choose between gas and food; or the times my phone got shut off my, or my car was repossessed. and i was so convinced that it wouldn’t be long before i would find myself in need again. my twenties was such a tumultuous time and for most of it i was fighting just to stay alive, to have a voice, to be a mom, and to own my freedom. but it was in this fight that i lost more than what i came in with.
moving to new jersey summer of 2016 i decided that enough had been enough. i was tired of going in circles, tired of repeating the same patterns and toxic cycles; clearly there was a lesson to be learned but all the dots were not connecting for me. i made a conscious decision that summer. and from that stemmed another and another until i ass naked standing at the thrones of my own feet. layer by layer, i was undressing myself uncovering and confronting the parts of my human experience i was either running away from, ashamed of or ignorant to. everything from my relationship to religion and the church, my body and pleasure, sex and sexuality, gender roles, and intimacy were called into question. and here i was having thoughts and opinions that were reflective of my own free will and thought patterns instead of them being a derivative of my mother’s. i was finding myself. moving away from what my childhood upbringing taught me a woman should be and allowing myself to figure out the kind of woman i wanted to be.
so much of my time was spent trying to please my mother, trying to live up to this identity that she created for me. so much of time was spent trying to get my “mother-in-law” to like me that i forgotten what it meant to love, like and accept myself. somewhere along the lines i forgot about self-preservation and self-advocacy putting the needs of everyone else before that of my own.
the one thing that trauma teaches you is distrust and disassociation; disconnecting you from your body and one’s ability to divine and intuit. you wander around aimlessly convinced that you have no time causing every action to be an urgent reaction. my fight-or-flight response had been activated for so long that it had become my only way of being and existing. and now that we were being forced to reintegrate; to shed skin. now that our renewal and our rebirth was upon us, i had to figure out what it meant to exist outside of my trauma identity. what it means to co-exist in a world that no longer calls for or requires my continued suffering.
trauma is such an embodied experience.
separating us from so much of who are and were. we second guess everything, become short-sighted and have no idea if we will ever, once again, see clear skies. however, for healing to take place author van der kolk of the body keeps the score says that, “the body needs to learn that the danger has passed.” that beyond the spiritual and the emotional, we need to physically understand how our bodies interact with our trauma and the world that is around us. visceral memory is what causes our bodies to react to the things we hear or see; it’s the thing that causes us to remember even when we don’t want to. our bodies carry the memories of our trauma and paying attention to each awakened sensation creates a portal for renewal and understanding.
within this issue we beg to ask, “who are you outside of your trauma identity?”
“how are you recovering?”,
“how are you softening?”,
and more importantly, “how are you mourning?”
we often don’t give space to mourn and i don’t think that’s because we don’t want to but simply because we don’t know how to and was never taught to. we live in such a fast-paced society that demands for our agility and immediate recovery. and when we fail at one or both of these things we open ourselves up to criticism and are viewed as weak. we all have experienced multiple forms of trauma and while we do not have to linger in it we also cannot fully move on from it if we have no understanding of it.
it’s okay to mourn the lives we never got to live. to mourn the love we never got to experience. the memories we never got to create and the time that was lost. its okay to feel anger and be enraged, who would you be if you studied and embodied these emotions instead of continuing to fear them? give space to your rage. what would become of us if we allowed ourselves to freely move about our emotions recognizing them as a natural part of our human experience? would we then find ourselves on the way to freedom?
when we release our trauma identity we are giving into the unknown. we allow ourselves to be more open and less triggered possessing the capability to self-soothe and self-advocate. we become more aware of our needs and the boundaries that we need to create. we aren’t as hyper-vigilant creating a breeding ground for forward-thinking. we are allowing of ourselves to create and participate in more healthy and fulfilling relationships. and we find our bodies to be more pleasurable and less tense; because a tense body is an unsafe safe body.
we owe it to ourselves to give space for our unwinding. for our unburdening; none of us can move forward carrying the weight of our past and the traumas that have formed. for that is not is freedom. it is my hope that as you move about and begin to find your place within this work that you begin to ask yourself, “ who am i when i no longer allow my trauma to lead?” finding home within yourself and listening to the wisdom that she has to offer you, both sacred and holy.
