Trauma Happened!

Fixing the outside is usually easier than the inside. I was having a conversation with a certain young lady and landed on talking scars. As a big sis, I find it very important to take these conversations quite seriously because I have the opportunity to cultivate these young minds. That’s why I always hashtag my posts with #IBeg2Differ because growing up I so badly wanted someone to share these discussions with me. Someone I respected, someone whose life had proven their thinking, so to say.

I grew up around people who were accepting to what life threw at them. This bothered me. I wanted someone to say “hey, there’s better out there.” I wasn’t looking for someone perfect; I was looking for someone who’s fought against the odds.

Now all grown up, I am that someone to someone else.

The beauty of social media is that we get to reach people from literally all over the world. What a time to be alive!

Any who, back to my very important point.

There’s a certain comfort that comes with keeping pain, it’s not healthy, but its comfort. Kinda like junk food, it has some comfort but it’s good for you. So I had to make this very necessary analogy to this wonderful young woman, because we don’t think too deep about it.

Especially emotional and psychological pain. There’s this weird, unnecessary thing we do – we want to always seem strong. Like we have it together. Who has ever had it together all their lives? Why do we put ourselves under so much unnecessary load and expectations?

So I continue saying to her, working on healing isn’t easy. Working on a physical wound, especially one visible to others is almost always treated with urgency. Maybe it’s because we don’t want to look at it or maybe because we want to forget about it as quickly as possible, I’m not really sure. But here’s the interesting thing. This particular wound gets the necessary treatment it needs, because it won’t go way, heal or be forgotten if it isn’t attended too.

But the mental or psychological wounds often go untreated. One will say time heals, but not necessarily. It helps you forget, but not heal you. If this was the case then surely all wounds, including physical wounds would be left untreated and allow time heal them then?

So how does one work on these emotional and psychological wounds? You have to seek professional help from trained professionals. Just like treating every other wound, the process is often painful; but still very necessary.

People often say it hurts too much to forgive. Well, forgiving is often part of the process, especially when dealing with trauma caused by abuse.

Another analogy I’ll use is one I witnessed myself. I was at a hospital some years ago. I wasn’t there as a patient, but a family member was. There was a small room the nurses used as a bay for taking off metal stitches from their patients who had suffered some kind of leg fracture. This was a public hospital, and of course resources were limited, so for these patients unfortunately didn’t receive any anaesthetic to help manage the pain when these metal stitches were being taken off. These patients were screaming from the pain; yet they stayed and endured it, because they knew they needed this process to happen for them to heal properly and completely. Also because they were advised that should they not endure this process, they may lose the wounded limb.

Coming back to mental and emotional healing. It’s exactly like that. You have to endure the pain of the process. And what limb may you lose here if you don’t endure? Not a limb per se but your peace if not your mental capacity to live a completely full life.

Take those we see in mental institutions. We often wonder what happened that has led to them finding themselves there – trauma happened. And if unattended and treated professionally, it may lead one to these institutions.

I hope this helps someone…