Trauma doesn't come in tidy boxes

I have struggled with this post for a while. It’s one I started to write probably two months ago. I come back to it from time to time and add some things, delete some things, change some words. I know it’s one I need to write. I think it’s probably one somebody needs to read. But unlike most of the things that I write, the words have not leaked from my heart and my brain onto the keyboard and onto the page. Each one has come with hesitation, and question, and discomfort. I have told myself several times that perhaps I am having such difficulty writing this because it’s not something I am supposed to put into words, or share. And yet I find myself drawn back to it, again and again.

And then, today, I read a blog post written by a dear friend about the pain that she has been keeping inside and refusing to look at, and the words resonated so deeply in my heart and in my soul. And I realized that the reason I have had such a difficult time with this writing is because it requires me to talk about things, about concepts, about feelings, that I have been refusing to look at in myself.

And so I sit back down to try again, with the prayer that, through my words, someone will read what they need to read today. That they might be comforted or encouraged by what they read. That they might realize that as alone as they may feel in their pain, they are not alone. They are never alone.

…

I read an article recently with a phrase that has stuck with me since: “Trauma doesn’t come in tidy boxes. People unpack it in different ways.”

Let me say that again.

Trauma doesn’t come in tidy boxes.

People unpack it in different ways.

Sometimes people experience abuse during childhood, adolescence, or adulthood and this abuse changes them and affects them in ways that they may not realize for much of their lives.

Sometimes, despite seeming on the surface like they are fine, there is deep trauma from this abuse that is buried underneath. Trauma that they may begin to experience in ways far more pronounced than they ever have before, and at times completely unexpected. Sometimes that happens when the person really starts to work through the initial trauma. Sometimes it happens when the person begins to realize the abuse, and the resulting behaviors, weren’t their fault and begins to look at the experience through a fresh lens.

Sometimes a person finds that even after many years of thinking that wounds have healed, there are still residual effects of the trauma that make life difficult at times. Call it a trauma reaction if you want, a traumatic stress response, PTSD. Whatever it’s called, the reaction is very real. The feelings that it invokes are very, very real.

It doesn’t matter if it’s been 4 months or 40 years.

It is possible to bury trauma for a long time. To build walls and bark around it. To bury it deep underground, and cover it with tons and tons of dirt and grass and trees. But eventually, that trauma will come to the surface. Maybe it’s when the person is exposed to someone else’s trauma and that triggers their own trauma memories. Maybe it’s when the person is doing a lot of self-work in making themselves vulnerable, and they discover that the walls they have torn down or the bark they have stripped off to allow access to their heart and their soul were the same walls and bark that were holding those trauma feelings in check. 

Maybe the survival techniques they have always used to deal with the trauma just don’t work anymore and they have to find some new way of coping, but before they can do that, they have to figure out what they are coping with. 

Maybe as they peel back and work through layers of feelings, they discover layers underneath they didn't even know existed.

Maybe there have always been trauma effects, but the person was just really good at hiding those effects and carrying the effects of that trauma themselves, instead of being comfortable saying no to the things that make them feel the effects. 

The thing with looking at feelings and experiences in a new way, of discovering feelings and discovering new ways of coping when your old ways of coping aren’t working anymore, is that you can’t always go back to who you were. You don’t always want to go back to who you were. Because the who you were of before is sometimes not the full version of who you are able to be. But sometimes when you become somebody new, the people who have known the old you get scared. Because they don’t know this new you. And just as you wonder sometimes if you still fit into the old life you used to live, they wonder if they fit in the new life that you are beginning to grow into.

The process of working through trauma, growing out of trauma, and growing through trauma isn’t easy. It requires a lot of shining light on places that have been dark for a really long time. And when you are used to hiding in the dark, the light can be awfully scary. When you are used to hiding in the dark, and suddenly the light comes in, it’s tempting to want to cower in the shadows. Because the light can be awfully bright. It can make you feel awfully exposed. People can see you more clearly in the light. Being seen doesn’t always make you feel very safe.

And shining light on abuse and trauma also causes light to shine on decisions that have been made because of abuse and trauma. Decisions that may bring their own set of shame. Decisions that may bring their own kind of guilt. The realization that decisions that have always seemed to be independent of the abuse are actually integrally related to that abuse is disconcerting. And seeing the motivation behind those decisions in the light of that abuse or trauma sometimes makes you realize that things you thought were your burden and guilt to carry, are instead your wounds to heal. When you have spent years trying to forgive yourself for things you have done, learning instead to forgive others can be hard. When you realize that you can forgive yourself for things not because the decisions you made were hurtful and wrong but because you were doing the best you could do at the time to take care of yourself, isn’t as easy at it may sound. Reframing yourself as a victim is sometimes necessary to understand the reality of who you are. But it’s not fun. It’s not comfortable. And it’s not pretty.

I had coffee a couple of months ago with someone who works in hospital chaplaincy, and when I asked her how she ended up feeling called to this area, what she said was this, “When I was going through my divorce, the most helpful thing was people just sitting with me in my pain. Not telling me how I was supposed to act or how I was supposed to feel. Just sitting with me. I wanted to be able to share that gift with others.”

For all of you who sit with people in their pain, without telling them how to act or how to feel, thank you, and keep it up. Your gift is greater than you may realize.

If you are sitting in your own pain, give yourself some grace. Forgive yourself for the things that need to be forgiven… the right things, not the things you’ve possibly been feeling guilt about for far too long.

If you love someone who is going through their own kind of growth and reconstruction, and sitting in their pain, be patient and give them some grace. You may not understand what they went through. You may not understand what they are going through now. But trust that they are doing the best they can with the tools that they have, and whether you understand the things they need to help them heal, trust that they know what they need, and let them have it.

Because trauma doesn’t come in tidy boxes.

People unpack it in different ways.