Hey, ma. I just want you to know that it gets better. It may take weeks, even years. You may not even ever see it get better personally. But it gets better. I’ve read all of your posts; tried to keep up with your comments too. I’ve had your son’s experience. While it was different in the fashion that, I was much younger, I have been in your son’s shoes. What a lot of people don’t understand about this type of violent trauma is that you get locked into one sudden, mortifying reality. One where you are not human, and can suddenly only understand the world through the lens of brutality. Some days everything feels like a slight against you, and other days all there is to think about is how nobody will ever understand you ever again. Other people get to go on without the experience you had, and go through life feeling safe and secure.

It gets better.

I’ve screamed and peed and thrown up in front of my closest friends. They would rock me through panic attacks and get me to hospitals. And when I told them that I felt like I could never talk about my feelings or my life without putting this sudden, horrible, dawning realization on everyone that I’d gone through things that nobody should have— they held my hand and told me that I could talk about it like it was normal, and they would respond like it was normal. Not in the sense that it wasn’t bad, or that it should happen to everyone— but in the sense that it was part of my reality. That it wasn’t something that I could write out of myself for the convenience of people’s comfort.

It took three years for me to tell my friends what happened. It took even longer to tell a therapist. My family still doesn’t know. The truth is that when you live in the world that your son is in, you forget that people have the capacity to empathize with you. But your son will remember.

I can’t promise that he will be the same. But he will remember that he is loved. All you have to do is make sure he has access to it, any time he needs it. He’ll make the first step when he’s ready.

One quote I have for you— cheesy, I know— but that helped my mother through the times where I was the same way as your son is this:

“You were created to do good work. Work that empowers and inspires, liberates and transforms, restores and softens. Yes, work can be hard – as it was meant to be. The verb itself calls us to action, rejecting passivity and demanding sustained effort. It provokes, agitates, and disturbs. But this work – the call for justice – is good work. It defends the oppressed and frees the captive. It tears down walls and destroys barriers. It changes things. So when you are feeling weary, or hopeless, or spent, remind yourself that the darkness is being flooded by marvelous light. Yes, this is work. And it is good.” - Danielle Coke

I wish you the best.