...and keep a close eye on the people who try to.
Hello and thanks for checking out my blog. I started this to share information with others who are interested in how I recovered or maybe you are here because you are looking for support, suggestions, tips, strategies and the like. My goal is to share my experience and if you only take away one concept I hope it is this: trauma might have impacted your life but you can recover and be happy again.
I recovered from significant childhood trauma and have truly created a life that deep down, I never thought was possible. There are certain tenets, rules, or Core Values I live by now though in order to maintain a mentally, emotionally, and socially healthy lifestyle, and my blog posts and videos are my attempt to capture and share those ideas with those who can use them. They are:
Acknowledge (it), Accept/Process (it), Forgive (them), Heal, Create, Move On, Help Others.
In this blog post, I am going to focus on the first one, ACKNOWLEDGE.
Acknowledge/Acknowledgement - it did in fact happen.
There is an unspoken stigma with admitting that you have been a victim of trauma and I can certainly understand why you wouldn’t want to admit it to anyone. Let’s be honest, the vulnerability that is part of opening up about something that traumatized you requires a willingness on your part to risk feeling the pain again. It is almost the same vulnerability that you experienced when you were traumatized, right? I mean, why would anyone want to subject themself to those feelings all over again? Not to mention, not everyone will understand where you are coming from and they might place judgement on you, potentially causing even more pain.
I hope my story and experience gives you the needed support and inspiration to take that risk. Without acknowledging that you are an experiencer of trauma, you might as well say you are giving your power and your freedom to be happy away to the person or people who caused it to begin with. It is time to take it back (that is where the term "recover" comes from).
Dr. Gabor Mate (trauma specialist) explains that it wasn’t the event itself that actually caused the trauma, but the experiencer's response to it. I’m fine with that concept, but why would I then want to relive those memories of the event in my story and experience it all over again? Especially now that I’m older than I was when I was traumatized. Don’t I now have the right to keep it buried and just live my life as I please? Can't I numb it all out and be blissful again like I was when I was a child?
Don’t we wish.
One thing that kept me in bondage of my trauma was my inner dialogue.
“I already lived through it once, I’m not going through it again. I don’t have to ever go back there again.”
And that is in fact my right…as long as it is working for me and the ones I love. In my case, not acknowledging my past and trying to be normal like everyone else just wasn't working. I wasn't feeling well (tired often) and had terrible anxiety most times, especially when interacting at social events.
When faced with the idea of sharing my story about trauma with the world, my inner dialogue was like, “Wait, I didn’t ask to be traumatized when I was a kid. I trusted someone that I was instinctively drawn to trust and they hurt me...badly. And you expect me to bring that back to the surface of my life and share it outloud? For what reason?”
And then on the other hand, by keeping it a secret inside I felt like I was doing something similarly harmful to my true self by spending so much energy maintaining the secret. It's no wonder I have (or had) anxiety!
I kept telling myself that I am supposed to be stronger than this, less vulnerable than this, better than this, and I’m supposed to be able to deal with this as just a part of life. I am tough, I can do this.
But to be honest, I got tired of trying to be something I am supposed to be. And where does this image or idea of who I'm supposed to be even come from anyway? Either way, I knew I was tired of living two lives and there came a moment when something inside me strongly "nudged"me to share my story of how I've been affected by childhood trauma. That is where my debut book HOLLOW originated from.
Where does the gaslighting concept in my title of this post come from and how does it relate to trauma?
The fact of the matter is that when traumatic events do occur, not everyone has the capacity to be honest about it. Who knows, maybe they are not ready to acknowledge and feel the painful emotions that come with it. I found that some people are genuinely supportive and proud that I spoke out, while some people deny it, almost making me feel guilty for saying anything. At any rate, I did experience trauma and had to do something positive about it - sharing my story turned out to bring a sense of release and relief that I didn't know I was missing out on. I can breath again! Did I mention I have zero anxiety now too? (I'll save that for another post)
Now let’s turn it toward you. If you think that you are in fact strong enough and tough enough to handle your traumatic past experience all by yourself, then be sure to get a 2nd and 3rd opinion on your perspective on how you are handling it. Your perception of yourself and how you are handling your affairs may not be in line with what the people who are closest to you think.
So how will you know if you are handling it well? Here are a few questions I reflected on to help me realize that I was not handling it as well as I thought I was.
Am I generally at peace with the people in my life or do people generally bother me?
Do I have resentments toward people in my life on a fairly regular basis?
Do people enjoy my company or do they seem awkward or uncomfortable around me?
Am I often cranky or irritable for no apparent reason?
My experience can be explained like this: I was under an assumption that maybe I was born angry, born with anxiety, born with an addictive personality, and ultimately born broken. I assumed things are what they are and I just need to learn how to accept that. I just need to do more or work harder...
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
In a general sense, I was lied to. I was told (or lead to believe) that I was a certain way because I was born that way. I was told that I had a really tough hand dealt to me and I was a victim of bad circumstances. Like the Truman Show, I had a cast of characters in my social network that also supported the lie.
Now I am not qualified to place the blame on who or what created that lie, but I am qualified to take responsibility for my own life. So I rejected the idea that I was born that way. I discovered that I was living a lie and the anxiety and anger were my signs and symptoms of living out that lie on a daily basis.
I knew in my heart that something was “off” about the way I was seeing the world and unfortunately (or fortunately I guess depending on how I reflect on it now) my social circles supported my victim mentality. Again, I am not placing blame here; they didn’t know any different either and I sure became the top salesman when it came to proving how unfortunate I was.
Ironically, now that I admitted that I experienced trauma as a kid and am taking action to heal from it, I am tougher and stronger than I’ve ever been. I am not hiding like I always have been and I'm not living a double life anymore. I literally have ZERO anxiety. And by the way, I believe the anxiety was my soul’s way of telling me to stop hiding.
Interested in hearing my full story? Check out my debut book, "Hollow: how a young man turned childhood trauma into music."
In the meantime, I wish you health and happiness! Feel free to reach out any time with questions, comments, or to share your story with me.
~Jake
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