Walking Contradictions

There’s an explanation to why trauma survivors may feel crazy. We are walking contradictions. Trauma messes with our brains and bodies; it’s not always easy to get them to line up. As we’re coping with trauma, and during healing, our bodies don’t always follow suit with logic. Sometimes our bodies are fine, and our brain is telling us just the opposite. What we crave from life doesn’t always match what we feel we deserve or what others tell us we deserve. How we feel inside and what we portray outwardly are different. Our words don’t always match our actions and vice versa. I know for me, most of these contradictions were subconscious. I didn’t realize how contradictory I was. Some of them are defense mechanisms we picked up along the way to protect ourselves. Some of them are from not wanting to be a burden. Our truth and reality are usually vastly different than true reality. Learning how to be congruent in what we say, how we feel, what we think, and how our body is responding is one of the many struggles of coping and healing trauma.

I wanted to get better, but I kept doing things that made everything worse.

I wanted to heal but refused to face the darkness. Sometimes that avoidance was conscious, other times it was unconscious.

I wanted desperately to be and feel loved and protected but my body wanted nothing to do with being touched.

I wanted to talk about it but couldn’t spit out the words.

I wanted to feel safe but continued to put myself in unsafe positions because that’s what my brain said I deserved.

For a lot of my journey, I could talk about all the horrific things I endured and show zero emotion about it; be relaxed. In other moments, my body was a mess: shaking, no eye-contact, tense, and the ability to use words was lost.

Logically, I knew cutting was unhealthy and unhelpful, but my body had a hard time accepting that.

I wanted to be loved but I didn’t know what healthy love was or how to accept it.

My body spent a lot of time tense, and all I wanted was to relax, but my brain told me I constantly needed to be on the lookout for danger.

I just wanted to be held and told everything would be okay, but my body didn’t want to be touched and my brain believed I’d never be okay.

I wanted help but felt I was too much of a burden, so I didn’t reach out.

I wanted to be understood but couldn’t explain my feelings.

I wanted to heal but needed to feel numb.

When I was numb my body craved pain because that’s what it knew.

I wanted out of my bad cycles but couldn’t give up the control that was keeping me in those negative patterns.

The Traumatized part of my brain lied to the logical part. My body was screaming at me but I couldn’t sit still long enough, or look deep enough within, to listen. My heart clashed with my brain, my brain clashed with my body, and all three contradicted each other. If you are reading to learn more, this is why trauma survivors feel crazy. If you are reading because you are looking for hope or answers, please know that you are not crazy. You are also not alone.

-JJ

“As we’re coping with trauma, and during healing, our bodies don’t always follow suit with logic. Sometimes our bodies are fine, and our brain is telling us just the opposite.” -JJ