“The strongest people in the world, are people who are still kind after the world tore them apart. “– google image
Somewhere beneath it all, you sense anxiety, grief, being kind of depressed but you cannot point to a reason why. You hear other people’s traumatic stories and think, “I am glad I do not have such a story. Well. I have a story but I have dealt with it. It does not bother me any more.” Of course, it can swing the other way: “Oh, they think that is bad. I should tell them about my trauma. It was way worse.” So goes the main different journeys through life and our own unique traumas. We all experience, think , feel, see trauma in different ways and so the healing is unique to us as well. We can disrespect our own emotional experiences by minimizing or compounding our experiences. Trauma does not have to be a slow horrific slug through life; a stuck in the mire experience where we identify with our trauma so much that it is an every day struggle, or we can find proper tools, proper support, and the journey is less arduous. We nurture our trauma or we get into the act of healing from trauma. No matter the trauma, we can walk a joyful walk through life, without lugging that millstone of trauma around behind us. Trauma can actually become a gift to us in that, in our healing, we are more sensitive towards others that have trauma, Wounded healers are common in the counseling field because they have done the work needed until they understand trauma can have them more sensitive to the ‘indivualized’ healing needed to survive, overcome, and thrive.
Trauma can be so deeply embedded that others will not be able to understand why we might have physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual projection of our past trauma(s). We have to know that healing is possible but it is up to only us if we find the right support and counsel to do so. Our psyche is meant to protect us but it can keep us living in survival mode rather than heal through the changes we need to make to turn the trauma into a gift. It is so easy to stay stuck.
When we have trauma, and begin to change, because we are changed forever, it means that, not only are we changed, but our change demands those who love us and are around us must change to meet our change. We resist (our Ego/Evil Inner Witch/critical inner voice) and so do the people around us. We and they all want us to be who we were before, and that can never happen after trauma. We are forever changed. (Even what might be small trauma to others can be huge to us). No one seems to know how to support us and so they try to act as if it never happened and do not understand our new trauma-projected self.
If the trauma was in childhood, it can be embedded even more deeply. There can be a sense of shame and guilt of a survivor. This drives the trauma reality even more deeply. As a child, we are quite helpless and when victimized, we are still in a critical developmental stage and we lacked control over our life and environment and we are in a frail mode for healing unless somehow, we are given the opportunity for help. Sometimes, we are prone to incredible strengths we did not know we had. Healing is never linear. It is always two steps ford and one step back in nature. We have to accept that there id no magic cure, no elixir, nothing miraculous to make it all go away. It becomes a path we walk for the rest of our lives. We will think we finally are on the path and something rears its ugly head and we feel back where we started. None of us heal in the same way, with the same tools, but just know, throughout life, we will stumble across another projection of our original wound. If we are healing, we know to acknowledge that projection and heal it ourselves through walking fore a time with the feeling and understanding that it needs compassion and strength to deal with. No one can do it better. It is all individualistic.
Tomorrow, I will write about the healing journey as part two of The Trauma Walk. Until then, love yourself, be compassionate, forgiving, a friend to yourself.
Carol Desjarlais 10.27.23
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