Releasing Jade 

I decided to call her Jade. My shadow self. The one whom my husband deemed the third person in our marriage. The one who had been by my side, living in my shadows, for 30 years. I finally named her because I finally realized I needed to let her go. 

Jade is a fierce warrior. Clothed in black silky fabrics that appear more like rags than riches. Black hair streaming across her angry, gray face. She doesn’t talk, she screams. She doesn’t walk, she floats. And fast. She enters into my mind’s eye like a freight train. Forcing me to see her and blocking out everything else.

She appears when I’m angry. When I’m triggered. And when I have PMS. It’s like my body summons her to protect me. Because when I have PMS for two weeks out of every month, my trauma is closer to the surface. And that is where you will find Jade. Hovering. Waiting for one slip into the darkness. Ready to caress me. And to take me over. 

Jade needed to be acknowledged. Our pain has to be. If we don’t acknowledge our pain, it rules us. It calls the shots. And, like with Jade, it can even run our lives. Jade ran my life for 23 years before my repressed trauma surfaced. Seeking comfort in the wrong people. Using toxic methods and substances to self-soothe. Lacking self-care. Not understanding our pain.

It took me 30 years to even realize I could see her. A complicated thing for I always knew she was there. Someone once told me that our anger materializes. That it takes shape. And I can attest that yes, it does. It becomes someone. Someone else. Someone who lives in the underworld. In the darkness and in the trauma. Someone who knows nothing but pain. And who shows up to fight your battles. 

It took me 30 years because that’s how long it took me to realize that I could let her go. That I had the power to tell her she needed to leave. That I love her, and that I appreciate all she’s done to protect me, but that it’s time to go. So now, 30 years later, in 2025, the year of the snake, it is finally time for me to shed her. To let her go. 

And it took me that long to realize I needed to let her go because it took that long to see how much I can love myself. How I can take back my life after what I suffered. After what I survived. And even though Jade was dominant in my life for 23 years, I still get decades to live. She had her time. Now it’s mine. 

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Photo by Marek Piwnicki