Trauma's Long Term Wounding

Several months ago, I was embroiled in a bit of a family drama. I received a vicious e-mail from a cousin, who I do not know, about one of my blog posts.  This blog post expressed my love for experiences we had at our beloved family cabin, but also expressed hurt that the cabin was gone.  Having someone completely belittle my experience and viciously attack me about a heartfelt blog post, made me sick and sad. Knowing that 'family' could be this heartless and unkind made me sick to my stomach.  It also triggered old traumas, old hurts.

Since rape and domestic violence in my late teens and early 20's, I have suffered from PTSD.  More than 20 years later, at times, I expect this hurt, this pain, that I carry deep within my body, to be gone.  I often don't realize how easily triggered I am, nor recognize when I begin to shut down.  The e-mail that I received and the actions of other family members in this same clan made me question myself, made me shut down and hide.  I felt overwhelmed and felt that I had  no worth.  The same feelings and insidious messages my abuser had instilled in me.  I recently read that one symptom of PTSD is the feeling that your world is about to fall down around you at any moment.  One trigger can set me into this feeling and throw me into complete panic. With the events that happened back in February, I have slowly begun to realize how easily I am still triggered.  Abuse and trauma never completely go away. 

Many traditions and philosophies have a message of 'acceptance', of learning to accept those things we cannot change. This philosophy, while helpful for some, can be harmful at times for those of us who have suffered from abuse.  When we have the type of body trauma and anxiety that comes from deeply abusive and invasive experiences, it is really hard to accept those things we cannot change.  It can take years to heal from traumatic experiences and jumping to 'acceptance' or 'forgiveness' can, at times, suppress the real healing that comes from feeling the rage, the sadness, and  the loss of innocence and trust.

With each trigger, I learn that my trauma lies deep within my body, mind and spirit. I wonder about the very public victims we have heard about the past year: the women who were raped by Cosby, the young victims of Josh Duggar, the many victims of campus rape, the ex-wife of Bill O'Reilly, and more.  How are they faring? Are they easily triggered?   Do they shy away from intimacy and struggle with this many years later? Do they have a hard time trusting anyone? Do they carry their trauma as wounds to their souls and have they been given a chance to heal?  My heart hurts for them. This long term hurting and healing is often forgotten in discussions about sexual and domestic violence.  Media doesn't focus on the fact that abuse is a wound on the victims' soul, a wound that can be re-opened, that can refuse to heal.  Sometimes, they talk about the hypocrisy of the perpetrator, but we forget that years later, there are still victims of these crimes that are facing ongoing life-changing hurt.

I also feel deep sympathy for 'public' victims as they not only have their own trauma from the abuse, they are also re-traumatized by people in the media who minimize their pain.  The media has been rife with examples of this cultural need to require victims to shut up, accept, forgive and move on. We hear public figures call abuse ' a mistake' while trying to minimize the impact, the deep hurt that the victims are subject to for the rest of their lives. My call to the media, to public figures who speak out, is to think before you speak, think of the victim and the trauma they endure and then re-endure when their abuse is made public by choice or by chance.  My call to all of us is to be kind, to think about the impact that your mere words can have on someones life, be it a nasty e-mail or a hateful comment on social media.  There are so many of us out here, wounded and trying to heal.  We could do with more compassion and a little less judgment and denial.

I feel my trauma deep in my mind, my body and soul.  I have worked hard to heal.  But, that trauma is still there, at times, lurking beneath the surface. Sometimes I don't even recognize it when my wound is re-opened and raw. This wound is not visible to the outside, but it is there nonetheless. There are millions of us walking around with similar wounds that at times become infected and life threatening be it through suppression and minimization of pain or through new abusive and hurtful experiences.  All of us need to do more to prevent our lives and our children's lives from being shattered by abuse.  We need to stand up to those who want to shut us up, who want to deny our experience.  As we all work to prevent and heal from abuse, we need to hold our hearts open for others who are hurt and wounded.  Remember that our trauma is a long term wound and that we must be gentle with ourselves to move forward.  Together, we can heal, grow, and work towards a world where abuse is rare, not common, and those traumatized are supported, not suppressed and re-traumatized. 

Our Tragic Legacy of Hiding

Since last week, I have been in heavy 'musing' mode, struggling to find the words to thoughts that overwhelm and disturb me.  So many times I come face to face with the issue of secrecy, hiding and shame and it seems like it is beyond my abilities to address it.  It is so deeply embedded in our society and our families.  Our ability to communicate and listen, to confront, and to soothe is so badly damaged that people are literally dying both quick and long deaths because of it.

This post is for the woman living in fear of a husband who abuses her, who hides this from everyone because he is a 'well respected' member of his community and no-one would believe her; a woman who suffers more than anyone should ever suffer without community to support her.

This post is for a man with mental health issues who lives in perpetual suffering in his head; who fears reaching out because 'men just don't do that'.  Even if he did reach out, the methods of 'care' are sadly lacking because of our deep ties to the pharmaceutical industry and our inability to find better options.  Options that may be more available if we, as a society, had just learned how to question, how to look deeply and confront wrongs and find better answers.

This post is for the sexual abuse survivor who tells small parts of her community her story, only to be shunned, ignored and sometimes even ostracized; a survivor who learns that hiding is better because that's the message society gives her.  This survivor loses key supports by isolating and those who 'know' are often left to carry a heavy burden themselves, without community, without communication; sickening whole communities of people.

This post of for the gay teenager living in a small religious community, who hides a major part of who he is for fear of ostracism and sometimes worse; a teenager who may become addicted to alcohol or drugs or even kill himself because the price of hiding is just too great.

This post is for the person who grieves the loss of a close loved on in secret because our culture puts a 'timeline' on grief and looks down on long term expressions of grief ; a person suffering in silence instead of sharing a load that may be made lighter just by the sharing of it. 

This post is for countless others who hide parts of themselves, who hide parts of their stories, because there is no support out there for them; who, when they do share their stories, are often ignored or diminished in sometimes deeply wounding ways.

We are as sick as the secrets we keep, the shame that we hold on to and are terrified to share and release.  This shame isolates all of us and teaches us to shut our hearts down in the face of pain.  It separates us from other people; diminishing our sense of community by closing all of us down to the pain and trauma that is merely a part of human experience. 

We learn from this culture that some things must be hidden.  Our deep hurts, our grief, our traumas, our addictions, our illnesses all must be hidden away.  We are taught to 'hide' and  'move on'.  Our children are taught that tough situations must be hidden, that its better not to talk about major trauma.  This hiding and suppression is deadly to both children and adults alike.  Those of us that refuse to hide are often ostracized.  Hiding our trauma often leads to addiction, physical and mental health issues. The traumas that happen to one person often affect entire communities with a dark and dysfunctional weight, a legacy of shame and pain. 

We cannot afford to keep hiding.  Our children deserve so much more than the society that they are born into.  They deserve communities of support where they can express things that torment them without fear and surrounded by love. Without expression of our deep sadness and trauma, we can never experience real joy.  All of us deserve a place where we can be open about trauma, where it is not a 'dirty little secret' that we carry around while it silently kills us.  We can no longer run from those things that make us uncomfortable. Those who are suffering deserve so much more than silence and avoidance. We all deserve so much more.