“Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.”
(Peter Levine)
Trauma Steals Imagination
ME: Do you feel like drawing today?
KID: Ok.
ME: What do you want to draw?
KID: I dunno. What should I draw?
ME: Anything you want!
KID: I don’t know what to draw.
ME: Ok, can I make a suggestion?
KID: Sure.
ME: How about if we draw trees?
KID: I don’t know how to draw a tree.
ME: I’m not that good at drawing, so I’m just going to do my best and not worry about it.
KID: But I don’t know how to draw a tree.
ME: Well, they’re our drawings. What if we can draw them any way we want to and agree that there’s no right or wrong way to do it?
KID: (Somewhat anxious) But I don’t want to draw it wrong.
ME: But if there’s no wrong way to do it…?
KID: Will you show me how to draw it?
I had some iteration of this same conversation many times when I first started working with kids in chronic trauma environments. It took me a while to understand that these kids survived by and large by anticipating what was being asked of them and delivering according to their perception of adult expectations.
It was so heartbreaking: This constant, pervasive stress had entire families wholly focused on survival. Creativity, imagination and play were often nearly completely squeezed out. I understood how they got there and how the adults in their lives had gotten there. We do need to survive first and there are times where it takes everything in us to do so. I just hate the toll it takes on people, especially very young people. I want better for all of us.
It’s Not Just “Them Over There”
I was speaking with another client, a generation older than me, who is emerging from about two decades of chronic trauma. She is healing to a point now where she is starting to remember who she fundamentally is. The parts of her personality and character that simply have not had room for expression until very recently are starting to dance a little impatiently under her skin. It’s such a beautiful thing to witness.
She has been saying things like, “I forgot that I like people!” It’s a manifestation of the disorganization/reorganization work that happens in J. William Worden’s “Adjusting to the new environment” Task of Mourning. Those tasks apply to losses in life as well as losses in death. This is the time when we look at all of the pieces of our lives that have been blown out of the previously neatly packed suitcase of “who I am.” We look at each piece and determine what doesn't belong in the new suitcase, what does, and if it does, where it goes now considering all we have learned and all the ways we have grown.
Post Pandemic Us
In some ways, this is what we are all doing at least in some measure as we do our longer-term recovery from the pandemic. While COVID is unfortunately still a threat, I am grateful that we have learned many more ways to prevent and to manage it. It’s no longer a global pandemic, and, it’s a lot less likely to take us out.
We have been working at what our work, our politics, our families, our communities, our relationships, our lifestyles look like here on the other side for a couple of years now. The sense of relative security and the relative predictability of our lives have shifted to something more manageable for most of us. We have a little more room.
Trauma changes us. We would do well to take a serious look at who we are now.
Rediscovery
I want to lead you in a little discovery exercise. Before you start, however, and I know you’re sick of hearing this from me, but it is incredibly important so that you do not retraumatize yourself as you revisit the recent past, stay off of your last nerve. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please take one literal minute to watch this video.) The narrative of your experience is an important part of your history; the body reactions that went along with those experiences do not serve you. Please use any one of the six techniques to disconnect that harmful body reaction and put your narrative outside of yourself somewhere for observation.
Please check in with your body state regularly as you consider these questions. Stop at any time. It will all still be there later. Doing this well is much more helpful than doing it all right now right now right now. As my daughter pleaded with me when she was a toddler, “One time at a time!”
Finding Our Way Back to Ourselves
Taking things “one time at a time,” ask and answer the following questions:
- What did I learn about myself?
- What did I learn about my ability to be resilient?
- What did I learn about the way I manage risk and threat?
- What did I learn about my relationships?
- What did I learn about my priorities?
- What did I learn about my assumptions?
- What did I learn about how I want to/ don’t want to live?
- What did I learn about the world around me?
- What did I learn about my spiritual, emotional and physical resources?
- What did I learn about my abilities?
- What did I learn about my preferences?
- What did I learn about my terms, (for work, for relationships, for self-care)?
Once you’ve answered all of those, ask and answer:
- Who am I now?
- What is the most fruitful and positive way I can use all that I’ve learned and who I am now to create a better future for myself and those around me?
Hope is Essential
It’s not like things are magically so much easier now on the other side. Many of us continue to struggle with the slow roll out effects of everything being turned on its head. I contend that we will manage those things so much better if we continue to look at our answers to these questions and make our decisions in the full light of all that we have learned through the struggle. We can move from Post Traumatic Injury to Post Traumatic Growth and co-create something beautiful that honors and reflects who we truly are.