Trauma

Trauma…

We live in a world where everyone is clawing, scratching and victimizing others without fully understanding what is going on… To make sense of it mainly begins in a honest pursuit of self discovery. Talking about that discovery is both a privilege and a serious responsibility. It is also a bold move. To live free, we must learn how to strengthen, maintain, and even rebuild our life if necessary. Personal resiliency or living free requires humility, Transparency, purpose and relationships who you are is not a Label !!!

Trauma affects everyone is society. Research by the centers for disease control and Prevention has shown that one in five Americans was sexually molested as a child; One in four was beaten by a parent to the point of a mark being left on their body; and one in three couples engages in physical violence. A quarter of us grew up with alcoholic relatives, and one out of eight witnessed their mother being beaten or hot (American Journal Of Preventive Medicine 14, No.4 (1998) pg 245-58)

I personally identify with four of those five categories. New York Psychologists Chaim Shatan and Robert J. Lifton, and a group of Vietnam veterans in 1980 Successfully lobbied the American Psychiatric Association to create a new diagnosis: Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which described a cluster of symptoms that was common, to a greater or lesser extent, to all of our veterans. Systematically identifying the symptoms and grouping them to gather into a disorder finally gave a name to the suffering of people who were overwhelmed by horror and helplessness.

But what about people like me, born during a time where it was unheard of to discuss such things? As we now know, was is not the only calamity that leaves human lives in ruins. While about a quarter of the soldiers who serve in war zones are expected to develop serious post traumatic problems, the majority of Americans experiences a violent crime at some time during their lives, and more accurate reporting has revealed that twelve million women in the United States has been victims of rape. More than half of all rapes occurs in girls below age fifteen. For many people the war begins at home. Each year about three millions children in the United States are reported as victims of child abuse and neglect. One million of these cases are serious and credible enough to force local child protective services or the Courts to take actions. In other words, for every Soldier who serves in a War zone abroad, there are ten (10) children who are endangered in their own homes !!!

Without honestly confronting these destructive behavior patterns, the victims often becomes the victimizers. As human beings we belong to an extremely resilient species. Throughout human existence we have rebounded from out relentless wars, countless disasters (both natural and man-made). and the violence and betrayal in our own lines. But traumatic experiences do leave traces, whether on a larger scale (on our histories and cultures) or close to home, on our families, with dark secrets being imperceptibly passed down through generations. They also leave traces on our minds and emotions, On our capacity for hot and intimacy, and even on our biology and immune systems. Ten years ago when I first decided to honestly do the hard work of self-discovery I didn’t know I would recover the hidden jewels of inner peace and tranquility. All I knew was sitting across from me, with a fine inch Plexiglas divider separating us, was the very woman I had spent my adult life failing time and time again. There she was holding our baby girl of only two weeks old, and here I was again, victimizing them and others mainly because I didn’t know how to handle trauma. When that woman (MY BABYDOLL) said to me, “James you have never chosen us, you have always chosen them —— in the streets”. T.E.A.R.S. was born !!!

Trauma, whether it is the result of something done to you or something you yourself have done, almost always makes it difficult to engage in intimate relationships. After you have experienced something so unspeakable, how do you learn to trust yourself or anyone else again? Or, conversely, how can you surrender to an intimate relationship after you have been brutally violated?

It takes enormous trust and courage to allow yourself to remember. One of the hardest things for traumatized people is to confront their shame about the way they behaved during a traumatic episode, whether it is objectively warranted (as in the commission of atrocities) or not (as in the case of a child who tries to placate her abuser).

Deep down many traumatized people are even more haunted by the shame they feel about what they themselves did or did not do under the circumstances. They despise themselves for how terrified, dependent, excited, or enraged they felt.

Most child abuse victims suffer from agonizing shame about the actions they took to survive and maintain a connections with the person who abused them. This is particularly trust if the abuser was someone close to the child, someone the child depended on, as is so often the case, The result can be confusion about whether one was a victims or a willing participant, which in turn leads to bewilderment about the difference between love and terror; pain and pleasure…

“I think this man is suffering from memories”. Sigmund Freud on Trauma 1895

Traumatized people have a tendency to super impose their trauma on everything around them and have trouble deciphering whatever is going on around them. Trauma also affects the imaginations…Imaginations is absolutely critical to the quality of our lives. Our imaginations enables us to leave our routine everyday existence by fantasizing about travel, food, sex, falling in love, or having the last word-all the things that make life interesting. Imagination gives us the opportunity to envision new possibilities-it is an essential launch pad for making our boredom, alleviates our pain, enhances our pleasure, and enriches our most intimate relationships. When people are compulsively and constantly pulled back into the past, to the last time they felt intense involvement and deep emotions, they suffer from a failure of imagination, a loss of the mental flexibility. Without imagination there is No hope, co chance to envision a better future No place to go, No personal reach…

T.E.A.R.S. is much more than ac acronym, it is the honest result of a life that have overcome the terrible effects of a traumatized life without dependency or mind altering drugs. In 2012 the public spent $1,526,228,000 on Abilify, more than on any other medication, Number three was Cymbalta, an antidepressant that sold well over a billion dollars worth of pills. (Wikipedia list of largest selling Pharmaceutical products). There are ways to truly heal from trauma and restore your autonomy. Being a patient rather than a participant in one’s healing process, separates suffering people from their community and alienates them from an inner sense of self. There really is a natural way to deal with trauma. Looking through the fog to see your identity and value is worth the journey. I share with people all the time that there is a big difference between examples and excuses. Examples liberate you, While excuses Imprison you!!!