I lost my ability to laugh.
When I was a little 14 yr old girl my mom told me and my sister we were going to fly to visit our dad. I didn’t like him because he was abusive (he even went to jail for domestic violence, it was pretty bad and I was scared he was going to kill us.) but went anyway because I had no control. From the first day, I wanted to leave. I asked my mom “When are we going back?” everyday, and she would say “We have yet to buy the plane tickets.”
She never bought the tickets, and only when she was registering me to a new school did I realize that we were moving in with him.
It broke me– I lost all my trust in the one person I needed to trust the most. I lost all my friends and never got to say bye to any of them. I cried every night for 2 years and even failed a grade. Now that its all *in the past* they should’ve gotten me at least a therapist or some help or something, but I got none of that. Instead I fell into a deep depression.
In the end I’m alright now (for the most part), I’m 17 and doing well in school, I gained understanding of the world and have goals in life. I haven’t forgiven my parents but I tolerate their existence. But here’s my problem: I lost my ability to laugh. Really laugh. Feel as if the world is going to be fine. I lost my confidence, my ability to form close friendships and relationships with people.
Time has healed a lot of my wounds but I never got any of that back.
What I’m looking for is some advice, practices, mantras ANYTHING that can help me laugh like I used to.