Our culture has told us that trauma is the big life altering events: a tornado, an assault, a car accident… We live in a culture that, in addition to defining it as these big events, even still reminds us constantly that someone has been through something worse so even those, often don’t count. The reality is, trauma is anything that we go through that causes pain and continues to impact us. Trauma is the daily messages that tell us that we aren’t good enough, that we are broken, that we aren’t worthy. We all have trauma but we are used to hearing “at least …”, “it could be worse”, “just look on the bright side” and the million other well-meaning but incredibly damaging messages that tell us that we don’t have the right to our experience, that they don’t count if someone has it worse.
People are right, someone probably “has it worse”…but how about this, please stop being happy and smiling because someone has it better. Sounds stupid right? Isn’t that the same message? (I actually respond this way to people…it quiets them pretty quickly). Should we just never feel anything ever because of what someone else may be experiencing, good or bad? The reality is that trauma cannot be quantified or qualified, what you have been through matters and your experience is valid and real. (Let’s be honest, even if it wasn’t, would it mean you didn’t feel it…nope didn’t think so. –I’ll come back to that point in a later post).
If we both get hit by a car and one of your legs gets broken and both of mine get broken…do you not need medical attention? Are you not in pain? No? But wait, mine is worse…oh that’s right! What I experience has zero bearing on your experience.
“But Tiffany, we should be grateful that it isn’t as bad as it could be, we need to see the bright side.”
There is absolutely value in gratitude. The problem comes when we push away our experience and feel shame for feeling bad because we feel that we must only feel grateful. I can be grateful that it in addition to breaking my two legs, I didn’t also break my arm because let’s be honest that would definitely increase the suckiness of the situation. That doesn’t mean that I can’t also struggle with (and feel the resulting emotions) around the fact that I still have two broken legs.
We are all entitled to our experiences and the reality is, I have never met someone who didn’t have trauma. It was just a matter of whether or not they felt they had the right to call it what it was. We can’t heal from what we don’t believe we’re allowed to experience.
Our traumas are not all the same and that doesn’t mean that we aren’t all affected by our own individual journeys. Yeah, I never experienced physical abuse as a kid or a lot of other things that I help people through daily, and I am so grateful for that. I feel lucky for all the opportunities I had and the loving home I was raised in. At the same time, that doesn’t change that as a kid, I went through things that have caused me pain and affected my relationships with others and my view of myself. These two things do not have to exist exclusively, they can exist together, because both are true and both are valid.
We all know pain and I have my own traumas throughout my life, some obvious, some not so obvious; and in my recognition of that, I have been able to make the choice to heal so that these experiences no longer weigh me down and that is a beautiful thing.
The good news and the bad news…you do have trauma. Good news, when you are able to acknowledge it, you can heal from it. Bad news, you have start acknowledging that you have pain, that it matters and start to feel it (well I guess in the long run that is good news too because you were feeling it anyway right?).