Layers
I was asked the other day by someone why I hadn’t written for a while. My answer wasn’t a lie; I have been busy. The problem there is, writing is important to me. It’s something I enjoy doing and if I’m not making time for it, I have learned there’s usually a deeper reason than I am busy. It means a new layer has been uncovered and I’m trying to navigate it or avoid it, depending on what it is.
With trauma, there are many layers to be uncovered and worked through. Some of these layers are like sand; easy to get through. Some are broken up rock; a bit heavier, but still possible to lift away. Then there’s concrete slabs that need a jack-hammer and every bit of effort you can muster to break it away. And the layers repeat. There could be sand, rock, mud, boulders, concrete, sand concrete, boulders…
This is one of the aspects of healing trauma that is not only hard for the survivor, but for those who love them as well. When you come to a layer you’ve seen before it almost feels like regression. To an outsider looking in, I can imagine they might think, “Ugh, haven’t we been here before?” They aren’t wrong, the survivor may touch back on something many times before the body, mind, soul, and heart are all in sync for it to be completely at rest.
When I first started healing, I thought the concrete slabs were the most difficult. I equate those to flashbacks, nightmares, mood swings… dealing with the scary things that happened. Things like processing the actual events and how those events made me feel as they were happening. The things I could grasp on to and be certain of. As I broke away those concrete slabs, though, I found mud.
Years in to this and the muddy layers have become my least favorite. It’s also become the layer that seems to repeat itself the most. Actually, as I think about it more, this layer reminds me of the consistency of oobleck. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a substance that can be both a solid and a liquid. If you put quick pressure on it or try to squeeze too hard, too fast, it’s a solid. However, if you put your hand in slowly, you can move right through it with ease. For me, these layers that are hard to understand, murky and need gentleness, ease and patience are the toughest to get through. They are also the ones I seem to experience the most. Probably because I always want to logic them away instead of going slow, being gentle, and having patience and compassion.
These layers mostly have to do with what I believe about myself. Logically, I know I am loved, I am enough, people care about me, am worthy. Thanks to the messages my trauma taught me, I constantly have to remind myself that my logic is truth. The longer I’m on this journey of healing, the longer I can ignore the subtle nagging feeling I have of being perpetually broken. That’s all I’m doing though is ignoring, I’m not healing it because I don’t want to admit out loud I still feel broken. I still have plenty of days where I feel I’m unworthy of the life I have and the people in it. That I don’t deserve how good things are, just because it’s better than it used to be. The nagging feeling that I’m tolerated but not actually wanted. There’s these subtle nudges back to the old messaging and sometimes those messages are loud and hard to ignore. That is what makes these layers mucky, sticky and hard to get through, though. Logically, I know those negative messages aren’t true about myself or any other survivor of trauma. The work comes from giving myself the patience and compassion to figure out what part of me isn’t in sync with my logic.
Remember how I said before, for a layer to stop repeating itself the brain, body, heart and soul all have to be in sync with the healing. There’s a piece of me that is not in sync with the understanding and truth of my worth. The lesson I’ve learned with layers, though, is that none of them last forever and nothing is impenetrable.
