My Mind’s Hidden Vault – Facing Trauma, Secrets, and Self-Acceptance

Without giving a lot away from Inside Out 2, I found it very interesting. I see all my thoughts as pictures or short videos so the reference of the thoughts all being stored away in tiny bubbles in different compartments in your brain really compels me.  There was two themes that made me question a lot of what has happened in my brain over the years. 

One is that there can be deep dark secrets, emotions, and trauma, all stored in a vault at the back of your brain. It’s locked and no one has the combination.  The brain does this to try and protect you from what it deems bad for you and because it is trying to make you keep living as you are living.  This method makes it easier for you to be in denial because in your everyday life it does not exist and does not come to surface. 

I know that my brain did that with my violent visions and harm ocd thoughts.  It wasn’t until I started journalling and telling the truth that the combination lock on that vault started to crack open.  Once I looked inside the vault, I was horrified by what I saw.  I was also, for whatever reason, ready to look in the vault.  Like finding a map to a distant treasure, I set out on my journey to see if there was any treasure there at all or just a coffin full of pirate’s bones. I did in fact find pirate’s bones and from what I could see nothing salvageable as treasure.  The important thing though is that I reached the destination, I reached the x on the map that the treasure was believed to be buried. 

I found denial and I found deep secrets of who I was amongst the coffin full of bones.  It is at that point where I could have walked away, burned the map so it could never be found again and no one would even go searching.  The problem was that it was in fact a piece of me and without it I was not who I authentically said I was. 

Which leads me to the second point I got out of the movie which was our belief system is built throughout our lives and we can’t take all the bad memories and ship them to the unconscious and only have good ones.  It’s the bad memories that sometimes make us who we are, for good or for bad. The part that saddens me about this is that my harmful visions and intrusive thoughts led me to believe from a young age that there was a part of me that was an awful person.  There was some type of evil always flashing at me and everytime it happened my core belief system got bigger and bigger that I was not a good human being, I was sick, I was disgusting.  Even though I tried to lock it away in the vault, my belief system was built on it and eventually that belief system continued to have internal struggles. 

How can you be a good person?  You most definitely are a sick, sick, individual.  The internal struggle continued and the loudest part of it was saying that someone like me should not exist.  It would be best for everyone, including myself to make it end.  When it took over and I disassociated from what I think is core me, it shoved all the reasons at me that I was no good, worthless, disgusting, and there was no room in the world for people as sick as I was. 

The thing is, I could tell when my thoughts ended and this powerful belief system took hold and told me things that I knew weren’t true.  I couldn’t fight against them though, they were way to powerful. All I could do is agree, even though I knew I felt otherwise.  My bully had made me believe all of it’s lies.  Slowly through medication, therapy, tms, and journaling I started to get stronger then the bully. 

No one else knows how strong your bully is. No one else can physically see your eyes bloodshot and bruised and your bloody nose.  It is only you who knows it’s there.  If you feel weak and ashamed you will never tell anyone about your bully.  The secret stays hidden and you die defending your character of being strong and perfect. 

I want people who are being bullied to speak up because it is the only way we know.  The only way to get them to speak up is that they not feel weak and shameful.  That is where the whole world can come in and do their part.  Each of us can save a human life by being as open about mental health as we are about diabetes.  You may never know who around you needs help but you can be the dim light that they see in the darkness, knowing you are a safe zone and a soft place to land and talking to you would not make them weak or shameful.  It comes from all of us collectively.

So show people your treasure maps and what kind of darkness is buried, it will inspire others to do the same and soon we will have gotten rid of all the buried bones and can all be free to find the real treasure. 

Chat again soon,

Michelle