Secondary Trauma
Explaining secondary trauma as I know it is difficult to do without feeling like I am putting blame on the survivor. Before you read further, please know that is not my intent. For me, secondary trauma is the trauma I experienced in adulthood that was related to the messaging from the trauma I experienced as a child. Secondary trauma is known to be hardest to recover from and heal because it does tend to involve some conscious choice. As adults, we’re called to make sense of our childhoods, it’s part of our developmental tasks. If we aren’t set up for success in how to make sense of it, or given what we need to make sense of childhood abuse, we have unresolved trauma. My unresolved trauma led me to make sense of that chaotic reality by producing chaos as an adult. Which is perfectly adaptive and logical. It’s just completely unhealthy and unhelpful.
At my most chaotic I was living homeless in a tent community with a group of men that decided I was there for their personal pleasure, whether I objected or not. At this point I didn’t know who I was, what I wanted, what to do, or how to survive. All I knew was that I didn’t want to feel the pain from my past or my current situation, so I numbed it the best I could with alcohol. Having at least consistency, routine… there was some safety in that. Even though it was a traumatic routine. And just because there was some choice in my staying doesn’t mean I truly had a choice, because all my childhood trauma, especially with Terry, was pumping through my skin and my skull all the time at that point.
I believed that secondary trauma is what I deserved, that I was right where I belonged. I was living that lifestyle but not necessarily by my own merit. There were choices along the way but there were also a lot of things that weren’t mine to choose. I didn’t choose to have childhood trauma. I didn’t choose to have that perpetrator come back into my life as an adult and date my mom. I didn’t make the decision to have people not believe me or choose him over me, claiming he had changed. I didn’t choose that abandonment or betrayal.
By the time that secondary trauma started, I was living in a blunted nervous system. The problem with that is little hints don’t work. If I can’t tune in to the danger, then it’s hard. I had good reason to not tune in; to discount what my body had to say about anything. It didn’t matter when I was a child, why would it matter now. That old messaging started when I was young and only grew in intensity as I got older. I lived in line with that messaging for a long time. Because of that messaging I made agreements with my sexuality to provide for my basic needs, and that was taken advantage of.
No one gets to that point without childhood trauma residue. I was there physically – I participated in the culture. I made agreements I thought would keep me safe, but that put me in more danger and caused more trauma. Decisions I recognize now no one should make. Due to old messaging, I couldn’t see any other way, any other life, any other place, any other worth. I was following messaging from childhood. It was my beacon, my guide. It led me right to my rock bottom and more trauma that I never would have endured without the initial trauma and messaging from childhood.
I stated earlier that secondary trauma was hardest to recover from because it does involve some conscious choice. That does not mean it’s impossible. I’m living proof that it’s possible. The key, in my opinion, is understanding and accepting why you made those choices. The messages that you learned that led you to that conscious choice were unhealthy and unhelpful to begin with and were not your choice. Forgive yourself for the decisions you made that helped you survive both the original trauma and the secondary trauma. You don’t know what you don’t know until you learn a better way. You deserve freedom, healing and wholeness with it all.
-JJ
“secondary trauma was hardest to recover from because it does involve some conscious choice. That does not mean it’s impossible.
I’m living proof that it’s possible.” -JJ