Back to Me Excerpt: Small Victories

By Kim B. Woodruff

Chapter 3: Even a Small Crack Will Bring Down the Great Wall: Small Victories Win the Battle

One of the first things I had to learn was that I needed positive reinforcement. I needed to feel like what I was doing was a good thing and it was helpful. To be honest, it felt like there was this huge wall that I could not get around. On the other side of that wall existed a life I knew I could have, one where I could find happiness and one where I could be a part of the world. But I was alone, without a guide to show me the way, without anything but the tiniest chisel and hammer and this massive wall, seemingly impenetrable, in front of me. In order for me to take down that wall, I needed strength. Not physical strength (I am still a very tiny person), but emotional strength.

I began seeing my world not in losses (as I had with the depression), but to see it in victories. I knew that with each victory, no matter how small, I would slowly chip away at the wall. It is a very hard process, and it takes time because I could only take down the bricks one by one as I conquered each fear, each anxiety, each PTSD trigger, each element of grief.

In such a process, it is easy to get frustrated, to want to just give up and go back to feeling numb, or in my case, being completely dead inside. But then again, I made a promise to myself not to give up. And I am very, very stubborn. Therefore, I used the victory system. Every time I did the slightest thing to help ease my suffering, I congratulated myself and saw that I put yet another point on the scoreboard, another chip in that menacing wall. From the smallest thing—getting out of bed and getting dressed, being in a crowd and trying not to freak out, crying once less in a day, or having a laugh at my favorite movie—each a victory, each a chip. I created confidence in myself by doing this every day. Seeing how much I “won” every day made me a stronger person. Even the days that I thought I failed, I still had to see that seeming failure as a victory because I survived that day, and sometimes that was enough.

For example, the first time I returned to a secondary school building I was there as part of my secondary education classes for observing the procedures of a fire drill. I got past the threshold of the building before I had a panic attack—along with a full PTSD flashback episode—and started crying, knowing the drill was coming within the hour. I couldn’t handle being in the building more than a couple minutes before I was in full, uncontrollable sobs. I looked at my teacher and said, “I can’t do this today.” She walked me out to my car, and I explained about Columbine and my PTSD. She said I was excused, but for that day’s class only. I sat and cried in my car for a good twenty minutes before I regained control of my emotions and the memories that came flooding back. While I sat there, feeling utterly ashamed of myself for behaving in such a way, I was determined to find at least one victory. I found four. My victories, even in a seeming loss were as follows:

1. I had the courage to try to go into a school, even knowing there would be a drill.

2. I knew that I was not ready to stay.

3. I made an effort to get over my fear.

4. I had the courage to tell someone why I couldn’t handle it.

The next time a drill came around (at a different building), I was already stronger with four victories under my belt, and they gave me the courage to sit through the drill, albeit in complete panic mode, but I still succeeded and gained more victories because I was learning to calm myself by using T’ai Chi. With each victory, each subsequent battle became more manageable. Each victory increased my ability to cope and control my actions. This was my key: re-learning what calm and control look and feel like. While difficult to achieve, each victory laid a new stone in my path to become more powerful and destroying the wall entirely.

I also learned something that I didn’t expect while creating my victories. While I chipped continuously away at the wall before me, I didn’t notice that the dust stuck to me and transformed the wall, changing me. Three-quarters of the way through my process, I saw how far I had really come. I saw how much stronger I was. The fragments of the wall morphed from an obstacle to my path forward and into a gleaming set of armor, complete with helmet, shield, and sword. I became my own knight in shining armor because I was able to find the strength to rescue myself from the depths behind the wall and was able to become part of the world again through my own personal quest.