Whether it be acute trauma, chronic trauma, or complex trauma. Trauma is trauma. Nobody is safe from potentially experiencing trauma and nobody is immune to what that trauma does to the human body. Maybe you feel the tightness in your chest, the shaking in your hands, or the tension in your shoulders. Perhaps you feel all of that and more. Maybe you feel nothing, being numb is just as terrifying as feeling everything. Regardless, trauma walks into our lives with arrogance, beats the hell out of us, kicks its shoes off inside our front door and takes a seat to stay awhile.
It is up to us to determine how we are going to treat this new company. You run into another room, lock the door, slide a dresser in front of it and hide in fear. That’s fair. Isolate yourself, take your deep breaths, and gain some composure. Now what? Trauma is still sitting in your living room with no intention of leaving.
What if though, you dug deep within yourself and found the courage to take a seat next to trauma and say, “What the hell pal, not cool.” Only then will you be able to discover how you are going to live peacefully with your new guest. When trauma reminds you, “It’s nothing personal dear, it’s just part of life.” You can eliminate the why me and change your mindset from a victim to a human dealing with trauma.
We can’t deal with trauma without dealing with trauma. Once you can have a chat with trauma you may find it not so intimidating. You might discover you can in fact tell trauma it cannot not live with you. Sure, it will come back to visit any time something reminds you of it, but visiting is far different than moving in.
When we find the courage to tell our trauma that it can no longer reside within us, then we are able to move forward in how we are going to deal with our trauma when it does come to visit. Whether that be in the form of a nightmare, a flashback or maybe another traumatic event we know now how simple it is to sit down and say “Trauma, you can’t stay here any longer.” You may even find trauma visits you less and less when it knows it is not welcome.
So, maybe you ran into the other room and hid. Again, that is a valid response to trauma. At some point though, whenever you are ready, you must come out of hiding and reclaim your household.
Be Brave -B