Hey, Trauma? The party’s over you can leave now, ok!

It’s occurred to me, as I try to minimise the impact of this latest re-traumatising event, that no matter how much we heal we might just have to accept that our past may always creep into our present and sit on our chest stealing our breath away like a childhood monster from under the bed.

And this may not be news to you but it is for me because I thought that I’d done it, you know, healed that trauma. Ticked it off the list and moved on. So it came as a bit of a shock to find that it still had the power to bring me to my knees.

And you know what, it wasn’t even something big, it was a small something, a little something that others might have just got a little agitated about but not me. No, my body reacted as if I’d been thrown into world war three and my whole family was at risk of extinction. And I’m shocked. Still am, sitting here writing this to you dear friend, I’m still reeling from the fact that my body took it upon itself to go all Rambo on me when maybe all it needed was a little Victor Meldrew (go look him up).

And there are a few other things I want to share about this latest experience, if you’ll hang around with me for a bit longer.

When we talk about trauma and triggers we think that it may be things in the same vein that set us off. So if violence has been in your past it makes sense that loud noises and shouting neighbours might be triggers for you but that isn’t always the case. I know, who knew?! This latest incident, for example, wasn’t anything to do with what caused my original trauma but my body has learnt this response and it wasn’t giving up on it easily.

Not only was I not expecting it because of the situation, I was also unprepared because I am so bloomin’ happy right now. I mean the months of self-development work and therapy have really started to have an impact and I’m seeing payback the size of Ikea bags! But it wasn’t enough to stop the re-traumatising altogether, although I do think it could have been much worse that’s for sure, despite it feeling absolutely awful.

The thing is when we are in the drama we don’t notice the effect so much, and for many reasons. But one of them seems, to me at least, to be because it seems natural to have a wild, body-wide reaction to a dramatic situation. After all, isn’t that what we would expect when faced with a dramatic, scary situation - shaking legs, sick to our stomach, dry mouth and terrified? And then we keep having those dramatic situations and our bodies keep reacting.  It takes less and less to trigger them, but we don’t notice because we are still IN those dramas, do you see, so it still feels right, and normal to feel all of those things.

For me, there’s another layer here too. I wasn’t as self-aware as I am now and I wouldn’t have spotted it even if I’d looked. I hadn’t done months of therapy and hard work learning about trauma response and how the body reacts, so I wouldn’t have seen what was staring back at me in my terrified face anyway.

So underneath all of this, there’s something good, maybe even something to celebrate. Because now I can see it, I am aware of my body’s reaction and the TV-soap-over-the-top reaction to this, quite frankly, horrible but not devastating event that triggered this latest episode.  And while I’m going through it I can observe it, learn from it and hold myself gently with love and kindness until it starts to flow out of my body, which it now has - thankfully. 

And all of this means I’m growing, I’m not where I used to be. I may still be triggered and I may still find that trauma shoves its ugly head in where it’s definitely not wanted but the way I look at it and deal with it is changing, and each time will be different and, I hope, get a little easier.

And right now, I’ll take that as a win.