HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO "FIX ME"?

Her back was hunched with her arms folded over her chest, and both elbows leaning on the edge of my desk.  Mascara ran down her thirty-something face.  “I’m a hot mess, sick of being sick,”  she screamed into her arms.  Then she sat up taller, stared across at me, and said it,  “So...how long will it take you to fix me?”
 

I leaned back into my chair and said, “I don’t fix anyone.  I’m just running along side you, passing you healing tools.”
 

“Great,”  she said re-actively, “Can’t you give me an estimate?”  Then she slumped down into her chair and cried harder.
 

“How long did it take you to learn to ski?”,  I ask.
 

ONE MOGUL, ONE BUMP AT A TIME
 

If you have been through trauma, and who hasn’t in one degree or another, there are many questions you have asked yourself:
 

Why am I always sick?

Why do people judge me?

Why doesn’t any of this make sense?
 

Over your lifetime, you have accumulated a variety of thoughts and emotions in regard to the trauma, that you were not sure how to decipher.  And as a result, often times these life experiences broke intofragmented memories.  Then, they buried into hidden places of your physical and emotional body, where they laid in wait for re-discovery.  
 

But, here’s the truth,  without process and elimination, these fragments have become stuck in your unconscious filing system.  These compartments of life are labeled with synonyms of fear, such as:  blame, shame, judgement, anger, addiction.
 

Let’s think about what your body physically processes and eliminates as toxins each day.  Have you ever said to yourself,  “Gosh, I don’t have the time to deal with all this “crap” right now, so I think I’ll just file it into a compartment and deal with it later.”
 

Okay, so that’s a bit graphic, but my point is, if we don’t eliminate and detox food waste, we are creating a septic environment in our body.  So why would emotions be any different?
 

Because you can’t see them?

Because they’re easier to ignore?

Because we convince ourselves we made them up?

No wonder you’re sick.  Why wouldn’t you be?
 

When we are unable to safely look at our truth, we grab for things that will anesthetize us from the pieces of our trauma that we do remember.  Drugs, alcohol, food...pick your poison.  And of course that brings need for more detoxing.  Ugh, there seems to be no end.
 

SO LET’S GET BACK TO THE “FIX ME” QUESTION
 

Are you waiting for others to fix you?  

Are you hoping they’ll notice you’re in need of being fixed?

Are you wishing they would, because you just don’t know how to do it yourself?
 

Our society has manifested a toxic victim vibration environment.  Millions of people waiting for the validation of being diagnosed and fixed, crying out for help and attention at every turn.
 

And here’s the worst part, when it’s us, most often, we don’t even realize it.
 

When we ask to be recognized for the pain we are in, isn’t that exactly what did not happen in our childhood? We were not heard.  We were not validated.  
 

When a child does not have the words to tell you what pains him, what does the do?  They cry, the scream, they throw a fit.  As adults, we often seek out attention in childish ways, because it is the only way our child-self knows how.  We blame, we shame, we self-judge, we get angry, we self-medicate.
 

In respect of our limited understanding of our childhood trauma facts, of course we cry and scream.  We are still that child, emotionally stuck in the time-warp of trauma.  
 

As adults, until we learn to sooth ourselves in a healthy, personally respectful way, we will be in constant reactive search for other people or things to do it for us.  And when these people or things don’t meet our expectation, and they never will because without a truthful look at who we honestly believe ourselves to be and why, it is not possible.  
 

It’s just our hard truth.  We have not yet acquired the tools to do so.  In fact, we weren’t even aware tools were necessary or available, because this was the only normal we knew to exist.  We have rocketed down the slope, arms flailing, and screaming for people to get out of the way because we just didn’t know how else to maneuver the bumps.  
 

People are often judgmental of the seemingly, childish attention seeking tactics some adults go to, to be heard. But how can you blame and shame someone for not having something they were not conscious they needed to begin with?
 

Someone once asked me, “Why is it people who have been traumatized, do such crazy things to get attention?”
 

“Why wouldn’t they?  It makes total sense to me.”

3 BIG QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF ABOUT TRAUMA PAIN

Dr. Gabor Mate, expert in addiction and childhood development, says it best:

“The first question should not be, why the addiction?  It should be, why the pain?”

Has anyone ever said this to you?

“You are stuck in your victim story, and you are stuck there by choice.”

And, have you ever responded something like this?

“Whoa.  Back up, people.  Are you blaming me for my own trauma issues?”  

Reactive response, right?  Years ago, this was me.  And, I didn’t totally realize how destructive this reaction was until I began writing my memoir, A Voice in the Tide: How I Spoke My Truth in the Undertow of Denial and Self-Blame.   

When writing about my trauma, I had to face the truth in my own story.  That’s when I learned how to detox all that fear out of it, and cut ties with my destructive self-talk.

I had been stuck telling and retelling the story of how my trauma was holding me hostage to being sick, angry, and worthless.  And, in the process of telling that story, I hoped, wished, and prayed someone else would figure out why I was stuck.    

When the truth jumps up and hits us in the face, we are not always ready to hear it.  

If this is your truth, as it was mine, reacting to others with insensitive accusations of their insensitivity, then adding them to the list of judgmental jerks who just don’t understand what it’s like to be a victim, will take you nowhere but nose-diving into more shame, blame, and pain.

It’s exhausting, isn’t it?

So, where do we go from there?  

Awareness.  If we are to heal from our trauma story, we must go to a place of awareness.

Here are 3 questions to ask yourself as you begin your journey into the truth of your trauma pain.

1.  WHERE DID THE PAIN BEGIN?

Without a clear understanding/recollection of the original point of wounding/violation, especially if you were a child at the time, our trauma story, as we perceive it, becomes locked into our cellular body.  If we cannot describe how we feel, for fear of shame and blame, we hold onto it.  That trauma pain remains buried until, sometimes decades later, an emotional trigger aggravates it out.  In the re-experiencing of the trauma, again, without understanding its source, we fall into the cycle of blaming and shaming ourselves and others.   

2.  AM I ADDICTED TO THE RETELLING OF MY VICTIM STORY?

The reason we tell and retell our story is because it is what we know and it’s what we perceive as validating.  The story of how we have been victimized becomes our identity.  At the cellular level of our trauma experience, we have encoded a story of pain.  How we perceive that pain creates our story going forward.  If we see ourselves in the story as less powerful, less successful, less able to speak our voice, we are creating a scenario for more of the same because this is our familiar.  

3.  DO I HAVE HEALTHY BOUNDARIES?

This is a tough question.  If we have not had example of healthy boundaries, we have nothing to go on, right?  What we have grown up with as our normal, and continued as our normal into our adult life, may be totally feeding into that cycle of re-victimizing ourselves and we are not even aware of it.

Here are a few ways to keep yourself in check:  

• Don’t over story, and be aware of those who do.  We are all looking to be validated, but sometimes, we just need to listen, observe, and learn.

• Don’t over share.  Remember, your trauma story, which is your normal, can be traumatizing for others to hear.  It may be completely out of their wheelhouse, or it may be triggering to their own trauma that you know nothing about.

• Don’t over forgive.  Asking for forgiveness over and over is another act of wanting to be validated by someone else.  Speak from your heart, not from your fear.  Over asking for others to forgive you for overstepping a boundary, puts you right back into the victim vibe.    

Awareness is the first step in cutting ties with being stuck in the pain of our trauma. And making a choice to seek truth in who you honestly believe yourself to be in that story and why, is your vehicle of journey.