Therapy

We live in an age in which mental health, and the struggles that we have from living as fallen human beings in a broken world, are being acknowledged and, to the best of our ability, addressed. So when we talk about trauma and the way that it follows us around, popping up all over again even in particularly good seasons, the natural inclination is to simply recommend that we go to therapy and "work it out." 

To some degree, this is true. No one is responsible for the way you handle your trauma but you. At the end of the day, if you want to have a different relationship with your trauma, it's up to you to pursue that. To put in the effort. To put in the work. To take the initiative. To make it happen. 

But as much as we have made a business out of trauma therapy, we have to be realistic about what we can and cannot do. And what we cannot do is "cure" trauma. Nor can we determine how quickly we work through it. 

You can spend years of your life and thousands of dollars in therapy, working through your trauma with absolute earnestness. But anyone who has ever lived with actual trauma knows that even after all of that, there are going to be things in this world that still remind you. And trauma is never just nudged; it is awakened. When something reminds you, it reminds you abruptly, without warning, in full color and sound and smell and feel. It is a full body experience that you don't get to choose to experience or not. 

You only get to choose what to do with it.  

The trick, then, is not getting rid of trauma so that it doesn't get to ruin anything any more - the trick is reconfiguring your relationship with trauma so that when it shows up, your life isn't ruined. It's learning how to grieve, how to embrace the pain, how to forgive, how to offer grace (to yourself as much as others). It's learning to make the knots in your fabric as small as possible, knowing they are never going to go away, while learning how to run your fingers over the tapestry, feel them, and just keep moving on. 

So often, we think that if we still feel trauma, if we're still affected by it, if it still impacts our life and intrudes into places we haven't invited it, then we haven't "dealt" with it. We haven't "healed" from it. 

That's simply not true. 

Your trauma can come back tomorrow in a way that is so profoundly familiar to you. And if, when it does, you handle it in a healthier way, then you are dealing with it. You are healing it. You are recognizing how to live with it and making adjustments so that it doesn't destroy you any more. 

There is a way to live with trauma and gratitude, and it comes when we are able to encounter trauma well. When we are able to let it have its moment without stealing ours. That's the whole goal of trauma therapy. Not that you would never be triggered again - we're human; this stuff stays with us; it's the way we're wired - but that you would never be taken hostage by your triggers again. 

Not that you don't have trauma, but that you don't live trauma's life; you get to live your own. 

And listen, I'm not saying not to go to therapy. I'm not saying not to get professional help. I'm not saying not to build a support network. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that we have to recognize trauma for what it is and not expect too much out of our pop psychology. We have to have a realistic perspective on what we can and can't do with trauma, what we can and cannot heal, what we can and cannot help. 

We cannot control what will bring trauma flooding back on us, no matter how much we work through. There will always be little details we didn't think of, things that remind us that we never thought to mention in therapy. So we have to figure out how we're going to deal with those moments.

That's the only way to keep trauma from robbing yet another season of its good things.