My Experience
Regarding The Importance of Healing Trauma
Recap:
See how quickly that escalated? That's what unresolved trauma does. It can change from the experience being the problem to the survivor being the problem. We believe the lies we're told inside the trauma. Trauma messaging takes over and that becomes our truth which leaves the reality of truth buried. We can only shove ourselves full of yuck so much before it starts overflowing and coming out sideways. Then those messages present themselves as low self-esteem and confidence, trust issues, addiction, lashing out, and other mental health problems.
My experience with that importance:
For example, when I found my way to Footnotes I was shattered and completely lost from reality. On top of that, to cope with my unresolved childhood trauma, I turned to alcohol and became addicted. I thought at this point I was at my bottom. I had zero confidence, and I hated everything about myself. I was separated from my kids and my husband had no idea how to help me. Little did I know that with my addiction, things were only going to get worse. Amanda, my therapist at Footnotes, urged me to get help for my addiction because she wanted to help with the wounds. We couldn't do the deep work trauma therapy involves if I was numbing and showing up to sessions drunk. I fought her help the whole time during the first two years but she never gave up on me. She didn't see me as defective. She saw me struggling to understand the trauma messaging I was fed.
My addiction and unresolved trauma led me to a life of homelessness. I lived in a tent by the river being raped on a regular basis by the guys that were "supposed" to be protecting me. But that was okay because the trauma messaging I learned growing up made me believe that was all I was worth. This secondary adult trauma I was experiencing was what I deserved. Eventually, I got to a point where numbing wasn't working anymore and I believed suicide was my last hope for relief. Thankfully, that was not God's plan, and instead, I ended up in treatment for my addiction. Five months later when I kicked the alcohol problem, Amanda accepted me back as a client with open arms. She walked with me through the darkness of processing and healing my childhood trauma. She hurt with me as I explained just how bad that secondary trauma got. She helped me unbury the truth under all the trauma messaging. It was hard and painful. There were days I wanted to be done healing. Pieces would come and trigger me when I least expected... but I learned that it's a process. I didn't get to the bottom overnight, and so I wasn't going to heal overnight.
When I look back at the process of fighting my way to healing, I'm grateful. It didn't feel like a gift at the time but it certainly is the best thing I ever did for myself. Due to my circumstances and lack of access to genuine help and care when I initially needed it, my journey was much more extreme and complex than it had to be.
If we can prevent it from getting that bad, we can extinguish further problems down the road. That's why healing is so important. Especially the trauma focused therapy and healing Footnotes provides. That's why it's important to seek help and for that help to be available.
It doesn't have to get so bad that it seems unmanageable.
-JJ
“If we can prevent it from getting that bad,
we can extinguish further problems down the road.”