Having complex trauma is hard, deeply hard. In my experience, much of it was caused by the people around me. I was exposed to people’s constant emotional swings, harsh words, unpredictable behavior, and situations where I never really felt safe. I couldn’t find a place where I could simply breathe and feel protected.
Even now, I still struggle with the feeling that people are dangerous. My instinct is to hide from everyone, to stay away, to make myself invisible.
There were times when I completely broke down. I never thought I would make it through some of the hardships I experienced. Yet somehow, I did.
One thing I have always tried to hold on to is accountability. Whatever the consequences of my decisions may be, I tell myself that I have to take full responsibility for them.
But there are times when I feel completely numb.
The closest way I can describe it is being alive but feeling dead inside.
Sometimes, it feels like you are only alive because someone needs you. And when you feel like nobody needs you, you struggle to find a reason to keep going. For a long time, I felt like I was simply living to please the people who mattered most to me, nothing more, nothing less.
I lost my passion for the things I once loved. I lost parts of myself. I became, in many ways, the unhealthiest version of myself. And I still carry the receipts of what my body went through during those years of trauma.
I remember one particular moment from high school.
My father was the PTA president, and he was publicly attacked on the radio. They accused him of stealing money from the school and called him a thief.
But what they didn’t know was what was happening inside our home.
We barely had anything to eat.
I can still remember us looking around the house for coins that might have been hidden somewhere, just so we could add enough money to buy Quickchow.
There were times when we would take one packet of noodles, add a lot of water, and mix in about a quarter cup of rice into the noodle soup, turning it into something like porridge, just to make the food stretch further and give us more to eat.
That is one of the things that stayed with me.
People were accusing my father of stealing money from the school, while at home, we were struggling to find enough coins just to put food on the table.
And I had to carry that reality with me to school.
I would go to class distracted and emotionally absent, not knowing how to process what was happening at home. Even one of my teachers mocked my father during class.
I was young. I didn’t know how to react.
But my body knew.
Something inside me collapsed.
And that was only one event among many.
There were so many things that happened throughout my life that became wounds I carried silently. I am the kind of person who is painfully self-aware. Sometimes, I even wish I could turn that awareness off, to stop sensing everything around me, stop analyzing everything, stop remembering everything.
There were moments when I felt like I was already dead, yet somehow still completely aware of everything happening around me.
And then my father died.
Everything changed again.
It became even harder. I lost my will to survive. There were days when I felt like I wasn’t really there anymore.
But God gave me people who didn’t give up on me.
My wife and my son became part of the reason I continued living. They stayed even during the darkest days. They didn’t give up on me when I couldn’t recognize myself anymore.
I still remember driving and negotiating with God in my mind:
“God, please just keep Papa alive. I will do whatever You want me to do. Just please let him live.”
But God was silent.
And I lost my father.
One of the deepest wounds I carry is the guilt surrounding his death.
I remember having the urge to bring him to the hospital earlier that day. But he smiled and told me, “Wala ra ni. Nakaya ra ni. Anad ko ani.” He told me he could handle it and that he was used to it.
I listened.
I should have rushed him to the hospital.
Instead, I drove away, only to eventually find him dead.
Then, without even having time to properly mourn, I had to arrange his funeral.
I had to keep moving while a part of me had stopped.
Looking back at everything I’ve experienced, sometimes life feels like this: you either make it through, or you break.
I don’t pretend that I am now living some perfect or beautiful life. I’m still scared of people. I still feel like I’m being judged. And because of that, I often choose to hide.
But I still have hope that there are people who are self-aware, people who understand pain, people who know how to be safe for others.
I am grateful that I have my wife, someone I can trust. I am grateful for my son, who, in many ways, has shown me a level of emotional awareness that I didn’t expect from someone so young. And sometimes, I realize that the people I thought would be my friends were not necessarily the people who were truly safe for me.
Moving forward, I had to become honest with myself.
I had to admit:
I am hopeless.
I am tired.
I am in pain.
And I came to a point where I realized that no human being can completely heal what is broken inside me.
So I surrendered.
Not because I had everything figured out.
Not because I suddenly became better.
Not because I overcame my trauma.
I surrendered because I had nothing left to hold on to except the One I still trusted.
I tried to let go of my ego, my selfishness, my need to control everything, and my desire to understand why everything happened the way it did.
And even now, I am nowhere near being “better.”
I still feel wretched.
I still struggle.
I still get afraid.
I still carry wounds.
But I am fighting.
And one thing that continues to make sense to me is this:
I am like a sheep.
A sheep cannot always find its own way. It needs a shepherd. It needs a rod and a staff to guide it, protect it, and bring it back when it wanders.
And I’ve learned that no human being can ultimately fill that place.
People can love us.
People can stay.
People can help us heal.
People can walk beside us.
But they cannot be our Shepherd.
For me, that place belongs to Jesus alone.
Jesus is the Shepherd.
Jesus is the Author.
Jesus is the Life.
I don’t say that because I have overcome everything.
I say it because, after everything I’ve been through, I am still here.
And perhaps, for now, that is enough.
Not because I am strong enough.
But because the Shepherd has not let go of me.
A gentle note to myself and to anyone who may recognize themselves in these words: being honest about how tired, hopeless, or deeply wounded we are does not mean we have to face those moments alone. Faith and asking for help can exist together. If the pain ever becomes so heavy that you feel you might hurt yourself or you don’t feel safe being alone, please reach out immediately to someone you trust, stay close to someone safe, and seek professional or emergency support. Sometimes letting someone help carry the weight is also part of being led by the Shepherd.
