I sat with someone as they went through a memory of an event. They were in the past, seeing it in the present. My job was to calm them down. It took a while.
Trauma is both internal and external. Surviving a heart attack is internal, and we also witness it externally. We’ll carry the memory with us inside our head forever.
Trauma can also be deceptive. What we experience as being within ourselves is actually outside of the self. A physical reaction to external cues might cause internal reactions. We might come to believe that what we experienced was internal rather than external trauma. And so it goes that we might live years believing and thinking about our experiences in one way rather than another.
When I was six, I was abused by those who used water to traumatize me. I wasn’t able to learn to swim… until one day when I was seven, and I figured out that the water would hold me up, and I’d be able to float on the top of it. Once I figured that out, I was able to take my feet off the bottom of the pool and kick. At first nobody could tell I had my feet off the bottom of the pool, and then I got it and you couldn’t keep me out of the water. Water is an equalizer. The memory of the water stayed in my head as I conquered the physical act of swimming. It was an external thing that lived in my head.
What we fear might be the monsters in our head, and for some people with mental illness the monsters become quite real. For most of us, the monsters we live with are easier to cope with.
Sometimes our liberations come via a comment, something others say and do with us that causes us to rethink the vision of ourselves. Trauma can cause a great deal of self-doubt and second-guessing who we are. We second-guess who we are to ourselves and to the world. What if we need to cut ourselves a great deal of slack? Most of the time we need to offer ourselves kindness.
I’ve witnessed the trauma perfection cycle, and I believe it stems from thinking that “if I just do this right, all will be well.” The problem with this type of thinking is that you can never do it well enough.
When trauma is discharged, and we set our loyal soldiers free, something amazing happens. Our ability to love ourselves increases and, with it, the loss of perfectionism. Along with this loss comes the ability to react differently to what once bothered us. We tend to look at those old rainbows in new ways, and our minds are blown away by our new actions. Now the rainbows are alive with vibrant colors that we may have never been able to see before!
I’ve talked about arriving on new shores after crossing the river Styx, and this is different. Whatever this is, it brings deep peace. It satisfies. This is a different internal that resolves the external stuff. I think it is to be defined for each person in their own way. What I understand isn’t what you will understand. Once again, I thank the loyal soldiers who served. Once again, I stand in amazement for what they did for me. For now, peace has come and made a home in my soul.