Edited by Ann Marie Elpa
How do/should we talk about trauma?
Haunting traumatic memories of the past have powerful ways of remaining in the present no matter how hard one tries to suppress those flashback-snapshot images from their mind. Trauma; a word that is used to describe pain, both emotional and physical, that has negative lasting effects on a person’s wellbeing (Medical dictionary). Well, at least that’s how Google’s Medical Dictionary describes it. However, what isn’t mentioned when the everyday person Google searches the term “Trauma” is how incredibly challenging and, oftentimes, heart-wrenchingly terrifying it is to talk about. It isn’t a light dinner topic that you bring up with your family when you talk about your day, or an easy, throw-over-the-shoulder story that you toss around at the movies with some friends. It is the internal struggle and pain of an experience, a period or moment in one’s life that refuses to abandon the minds of its survivors, those who have gone through it. “Oh, just talk about it, it’s already happened.” Yes, it has “already happened”, but I am still vividly living in the aftermath.
Do you want to talk about it?
No one can tell you how to go through your trauma due to the simple fact that everyone experiences it differently. While it’s concept is globally defined, it is the person who experiences it’s affects that gives trauma a meaning beyond its definition. Everyone navigates through personal trauma in their own way. Why? Well, for the simple reason that it is truthfully very personal. There is no rule-book with written instructions that will guide you through the process of navigating through your personal trauma. In retrospect, if someone had told me two years ago that there was a quick fix for getting through trauma or an overnight remedy, I can honestly say that I would have taken it in a heartbeat. It hits you like a ball of fire; it may burn for a couple days or weeks, but the scars are there to remind you that yes, in fact, this did happen to you. You feel like you’ve lost your sense of self, as the person that existed before becomes a blurry and almost unrecognizable image. As I walk around my familiar university grounds, getting to classes, grabbing coffee and running into fellow classmates, I still feel like an outsider to the people around me with my feet the farthest away from the ground. The trauma that I experienced continues to mentally and physically isolates me from the existing world around me, from social interactions to being able to hangout with a couple of friends and not be overwhelmed by anxiety. “Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?” are common responses that I would get from people who, on one hand, want to help me open up, but at the same time, perhaps don’t and will never fully understand my past that roams inside me. Part of the baggage that comes with trauma is the effects that it has on one’s inner character that presses deeply into the raw fabric of who you are, leaving a survivor uncertain and anxious as to how to navigate through their everyday space. So the answer to this question? Yes, I want to talk about it, I want to shout it from the rooftops until all of it is drained out of my system, but unfortunately, that’s not how it works.
You fight back. I have been fighting back and growing from the past. On the other hand, what makes fighting back challenging is being constantly reminded of the pain of the past. When someone is made aware that you have suffered trauma, whether it be a family member, friends, or medical professionals, it is hard for the person on the receiving end to avoid building up an image in their heads. An image of what you ask? The “perfect trauma victim”. Everyone, including myself, have tendencies to build images linked to classificatory words, such as “teacher”, “student” and, in this case, “trauma victim”. What do people see when they think of the word “trauma” or “trauma victim”? How do we build the perfect trauma victim then? Millions of images of the perfect “Trauma victim” are drawn up in our individual heads, but the truth is is that each experience of trauma is unique and personal to the survivor, meaning that each and every one of us’ depiction of trauma is unique. One person’s conjuring of the “trauma victim” image may initiate an expectation for survivors of that very trauma to meet. “What happens when you don’t meet the expectations of what a “True trauma victim” is suppose to look like? Are you even really a trauma victim if you haven’t experienced x,y, and z?” These are just some of the questions that I have asked myself along my journey and that I still struggle to navigate through as I continue my journey of recovery. What I have learnt is that, no matter what, your feelings will always be valid. This is something that I still struggle with and am constantly reminding myself that it is okay to cry when you feel like crying, to smile when it feels natural, and to feel the way I feel you feel in that very moment for yourself, and no one else.
The aftermath of a shattered mirror: Who am I?
Envision a clear glass mirror standing placed in front of you. You’re staring back at yourself, still and not shifting an inch. In an instant, the image that I see of myself, the person looking back at me becomes shattered by the force of a bowling ball that comes out of nowhere. The pieces of glass, that once made up a mirror of reflexion that was clear as day, are now shattered and scattered on the floor. The only thing left to do is pick them up piece by piece and reassemble a new image of what you once saw staring back at you in the mirror. Not perfect, but new.
In the wise words of my mother, “If you can’t feel both of your two feet on the ground, that’s when you’re lost.” Here’s the thing, what happens when you can’t feel your two feet firmly on the ground? As one stands on the path of the recovery phase of trauma, they stop to grieve the lost person that they were and live in doubt of the individual that they may become. In this sense, the recovery phase that comes along with personal trauma is focused on the rediscovering of a sense of self; the image or perception that one has of themselves and who they set out to become. Experiences of trauma shatter one’s internal understandings of self and how they exist in the world they live in, making it a constant uphill battle to achieve peace within themselves. The victim becomes removed from the body of the person that they once were. In this sense, terror, the direct response to trauma becomes characterized by the internal disintegration and deformation of self. Knowing oneself and being able to answer the question ‘who am I?’ and being okay with it takes a lot of strength.
Instead of personal trauma defining who I was for the rest of my life, I realized that it becomes an authentic building block and a key piece in constructing the person that I am still becoming. While it seems easy to say, it is harder to pursue. The truth is, after experiencing a traumatic event, the person that someone once was will never return back to them. Instead, a period of regrowth occurs and is built from the grounds of reflection and self-acceptance following the trauma experienced. Part of this regrowth process is reconnecting with themselves and building a newly found sense of self from the ground up. During this process, I began with picking up the broken pieces of that shattered mirror and found ways to assemble them back together to create, not a cracked image of myself, but the reflection of a strong and capable woman with a story to live and tell. Our life stories become the vehicle for identity construction. That being said, part of navigating through personal trauma coming to recognize that we continue to evolve and grow as human beings. Instead of the trauma stopping an individual in their tracks, it has allowed them to re-navigate their direction. Instead of thinking 10 steps ahead in the recovery process or 1 step behind in the past, my new mission has been set on centering my focus on where I stand in the now and how I understand my place in time and space. Undergoing a traumatic experiences takes it’s toll on everyone differently, but in the end, after weathering the storm, victims grow into survivors from a place of rebirth where they discover the redefined and stronger person that they have built from the ground-up by laying the grounds for a future that they are in charge of.
Trauma changes you, but it also teaches you a lot about yourself. What I went through still exists within me and I know that it will never leave me. Yes, everything that we go through as human beings become life experiences, and some stick with you more than others, but this does not change the fact that we continue to grow from anything and everything that we encounter in life. As a twenty-year-old woman, I am filled with a lot of joy, happiness, and gratefulness for the life that I have and continue to create. The eighteen-year-old Mélina who went through a shuttering and painful experience has not internalized the pain and become a victim to it, but instead, has grown and continues to grow into a strong and beautiful human being that is living through the challenges that she meets. There is nothing more important in this world than learning to love oneself. You are the most important person on this earth and we need to remind ourselves of our worthiness for love, compassion, and inner peace. We endure painful challenges, come across rough bumps in the road, but in the long run, we keep living.
Does it get better?
While there is no rule-book, no overnight fix, and certainly no magical spell that can give trauma sufferers the quick-fix that they need, the fight that we endure turns our role into one of a survivor. During my process of healing and re-building my sense of identity, myself, along with other survivors out there, have re-narrated our stories by giving them a new meaning; one of strength and perseverance. To be able to look at ourselves in the mirror a little bit by bit along the way and grow to become proud of the feeling that we get when the person that we see looks back at us. By telling our stories, we navigate through by opening the doors that we feared to unlock.
I have learnt more about myself in the past 2 years by sharing my story and confronting the internal trauma head on and giving it meaning. In this sense, confronting the personal trauma that looms inside its survivors contributes to an internal realization that the pain that one suffered has not defined them but contributed to an authentic understanding and acceptance of who we are. In this guess, I can confidently say that whether it gets “better” or not wouldn’t’ be the best way to frame the question. The trauma itself will always be there without getting better or worse; it is the manner in which we give it meaning that shapes how we move forward. So, while “getting better” may be the usual narrative, I am turning this around to say that instead, we grow to become “stronger” as we continue to walk along our life path and live in each and every moment, whatever it may be.