"I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship." Louisa May Alcott
You are so much stronger now that you have had these challenging experiences. Don't be afraid to start over. This time you're not starting from scratch, you're starting from experience.
You were drawn to this page because you either know you've experienced trauma, or you wonder if you have.
But what if it doesn't feel like everyone else's?
Everyone's trauma is unique to their own life experiences.
Sometimes we are aware of when trauma is occurring and sometimes we don't realize it. It might come into our awareness when triggers pop up, causing us to flashback into that space.
Maybe the trauma was the beginning of...
not being able to manage emotions or
fears of being abandoned or
losing our joy
losing our sense of safety
But was it really trauma?
If you are noticing...
an inability to form healthy relationships
avoiding certain situations
making negative assumptions about what others are thinking about you
being a people pleaser
trouble recognizing and expressing emotions
low self esteem or self worth
anxiety and depression
a sense of hopelessness
issues with your physical body such as headaches, stomach aches, muscle tension
...you could have experienced trauma
If it felt traumatic to you, then it was trauma that you experienced.
If we compare our trauma to others, saying that our trauma isn't as bad as what someone else went through, it invalidates our trauma. This may prolong some of the healing process. Traumatic events can be from being in an abusive or neglectful relationship (emotional, physical, and sexual), an accident of any sort, job termination, witnessing violence, victim of a crime, anything that makes you feel an inability to function with joy, happiness, and sense of safety.
So why not get into the work and heal?
Spending time working on self is not selfish it's called self preservation
Healing is really just letting yourself feel. It is unearthing your traumas and embarrassments and losses and allowing yourself the emotions that you could not have in the moment that you were having in those experiences.
Wounded healers aren't born or made. They create themselves by transforming their pain into power and adversity into strength. They are spiritual alchemist who understand the value of facing the shadows and transmuting them into light. They are the illuminators of the unseen realms and help lost souls find help, home, and healing. -Unknown
The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body's energy system. - Gary Craig
