What Is Life If It's Not Sharing Traumas With Other Humans

To answer the question, at first, it's insanely hard. Traumas are, however, a part of life. And if you have never been traumatized, you can consider yourself one of the luckiest people alive.

Traumas come in different forms. What you might call a trauma, others might consider a "walk in the park." That is why it's important to understand what defines a trauma.

Trauma, according to PsychCentral.com, is a response to an intensely stressful event or situation. The effects can be long-lasting, as most of us know. However, it's possible to heal from traumas.

The best way I know to get into trauma is to share some and see what people think. While doing so, consider what traumas you have suffered, and why they were more or less traumatic than others might think they are.

The earliest forms of trauma are typically experienced during childhood. I can remember waking up as a small boy and seeing my grandfather cry. That was traumatic because I woke up in a hospital. My grandmother had problems from brain surgery, caused by MS, and had a violent outburst. Seeing my grandfather cry over it stuck with me.

As a kid, that was a traumatic event. I didn't like being in the hospital, and it was scary at that age. Seeing my hero at that age cry might have been the first time I worried about someone else.

How would you recommend a child deal with something of that nature? Well, as adults, they all gathered around, promised me that Grandma didn't mean it, and I recall getting a new fishing rod and reel combo. They wanted to make it up to me.

Later in life, traumatic events become more complicated. My mother's mental illnesses turned violent for a while. Being a kid, against a hefty-sized adult, getting pummeled (yes, literally), will stick in your mind. It'll make you gunshy around that person. But she was all I had, and at the time, I didn't understand the evil she was committing.

When I was twelve years old, I had a new dad. Things were safer. My dad was a great guy.

This was also when some friends and I were riding our bikes around the neighborhood one summer. As we crossed a street a block from home, intending to ride around the Jr. High School, I noticed something on the sidewalk. Small but noticeable red drops of liquid were leading toward the school.

If you haven't guessed, we followed the trail. It wound around a monument that was along the sidewalk on school grounds. There were two evergreen trees, one on each side. Behind the trees, lying motionless and unconscious, was a body. David was a local. We all knew him from seeing him in the neighborhood. He'd been stabbed several times.

Being the older one of the group, I told the girl with us to ride back and tell someone to call the police. Moments went by, and the police arrived. Then an ambulance. They were able to follow the blood trail to a house across the street from where I lived. There'd been a fight, and this was the result.

It wasn't the first or last time I'd talk to the police. Heck, the first time I was five or six. I inadvertently wound up being able to identify a man who raped a girl my age.

These are all traumatic events. They helped to form who I'd be in my late teens. Then came the ultimate traumatic event: divorce.

It happens, right? You fall in love, concoct a life plan with someone, have a child with someone, and then... Boom! The rug is pulled out from beneath your feet.

Why was it traumatic? We'd been through a lot. I'd tried to make things work out for the best, even forgiving some sins before the wedding. The wedding wasn't my idea, at least not at the time.

So, when just five months into our marriage, with a two-year-old child in the mix, after she convinced me this was what she wanted more than anything in the world, imagine my surprise when she spoke these words.

"I shouldn't have married you. I've never loved you. I just used you to get away from my parents."

Those words have been etched in my brain since 1993. Sadly, back then, someone else genuinely loved me. But I had a child. I wanted dearly to give him a stable and loving home, and one with both of his parents.

This was all before I was age 25. And this doesn't cover ten percent of the traumas I saw by that time. It doesn't cover random street violence. It didn't cover the time I was watching as a man got hit by a car and bounced over the hood, off the windshield, and his eyes came out of the orbital sockets. It doesn't cover staring down the barrel of not one, but two loaded guns. And it doesn't cover the dozens, maybe hundreds, of traumatic events as an officer, or as someone living in a complicated world.

The thing that I'd like to share with others is that no matter the pain you might be suffering, there's someone out there who understands.

Also, life does go on. It may seem like it doesn't. With every hardship, there's another day. With every trial, there's the chance to learn, and there's the chance to succeed.

True, the parts I shared are jarring. Believe me, I've seen worse.