It happens. Over and over. Blogging wears on me, seems like a waste of time, and I quit doing it. Then the nagging discomfort begins: ideas need expression; without incoming comments I feel more alone. And so…
Last week I wrote seven blog posts. Each is just under six hundred words and covers some aspect of recovery from childhood hardship. The pieces are not for WillSpirit. They’ll be posted weekly on a new blog hosted by a site devoted to healing after trauma. (I’ll announce the new URL once everything’s finalized.)
Writing those pieces taught me a few things. First, shorter essays require more concise and focused language; so I’m going to try to impose a word limit here. Second, immersing myself in trauma literature stirs up a lot of emotion. How could it not be distressing to acknowledge how much difficulty traces to abuse, bereavement, and neglect in childhood? This goes beyond the personal: many public health problems and conflicts result from early pain (see below). Finally, I see that despite all my hard work on myself, obstacles common to many trauma survivors continue to stand in my way; in particular, a strong tendency to isolate rather than reach out.
So I’m writing again. Aiming for shorter essays. Working out my distress. Opening up to others.
Does blogging count as reaching out? At times, it’s the best I can do. Which draws the whole problem of trauma into focus: it makes most difficult that which is most necessary.
To heal we need openness, trust, vulnerability, lightheartedness, self-love, hope, and much more. Notice a trend here? We who come from traumatic backgrounds often find such qualities terrifying. That which heals, horrifies. At least until we gain some recovery, and even then moving toward genuine connection requires substantial courage.
Courage I don’t always possess. But one way to find fortitude is to shift the focus away from the self and onto the bigger picture:
Recent epidemiological information about the effects of early trauma reveals alarming truths. The Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Study proved that even in an employed middle-class Kaiser population, more than half the subjects experienced significant childhood adversity growing up. Other studies have shown that rates and severity of trauma are much higher among the homeless, the addicted, and other struggling groups.
The ACE Study also showed that poor health outcomes rise in proportion to childhood hardship. Rates of lung, liver, and heart disease are all correlated. So are depressive episodes, psychiatric medications, suicide attempts, alcoholism, smoking, and addictions of all kinds.
The study authors conclude that early adversity underlies many of the most important public health problems of our day. As the traumatized endeavor to cope with strong painful emotions, they turn to behaviors that provide short-term relief (like smoking) at the expense of long-term ill-health.
Well, that’s the bad news. Let’s focus on the more comforting tidbits one gleans from reading about trauma:
- We aren’t alone. If so many suffer from trauma’s aftereffects, then feeling unique in our suffering no longer makes sense.
- Trauma affects each person differently but causes enough common difficulty that we can understand one another.
- Healing happens, and it happens most when we come together in community. Even in community online.
For today, I’m back online. Writing is like recovery: it happens one day at a time. We strive to open up, to reach out, to accept, and to heal by working one day, one word, at a time.
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hello Will! Waving hello from Beyond Meds…
looking forward to your posts on recovering from trauma…a main theme of my work these days too.
xoxo
Great to hear from you, Gianna. How wonderful that trauma recovery is finally moving into the mainstream with the ACE Study and all. It’s like the personal work of our individual lifetimes is now recognized as the collective work of modern culture. Yeah!
“It’s like the personal work of our individual lifetimes is now recognized as the collective work of modern culture. Yeah!”
precisely! what a wonderful way to articulate it!
Hey Will…
If you’re reaching out, I’m reaching back. Hope you can feel it.
Writing is like recovery… I find it painful, difficult, tiring, wearing… but then, like yourself, I find NOT writing just the same.
Just want you to know that some of that voice is heard, all the way through cyberspace.
Keep blogging.
WS
WonderingSoul–
Thanks for the reach-back. Much appreciated. Funny how blogging feels like a lonely activity until I stop. Only then do I realize that the practice actually does foster connection.
Both recovery and writing get a little easier with time, don’t they?
–Will
Hmm Will… I’d love to answer your question with a heartfelt yes, but in the interests of integrity, I can’t. I do agree that this fosters connection though, and I think that connection somehow plays a part in healing…
ws
I like the idea that the individual work is the collective work of the culture. The pain permeates, the healing permeates. We all suffer the consequences, we all reap the benefits. Thanks for doing this Will.
I would say that learning and healing from abusive models of interaction is the culture of the future.
It starts by interacting with others which helps us break the models in our heads, and later translates in breaking them on the scale of everyday life and further on a larger scale, including touching the life of others….and so it goes, in an infinite connectedness, similar to the perpetual and ever-changing particle-wave tissue of the cosmos …
This is a good piece of writing, Will. I do believe the majority of humanity suffers some form of trauma from childhood…we just don’t all know it.
I count myself among the blessed that I do know it and that I’ve been gifted with courage to do the processing that needs to be done.
The journey to wholeness is not always an easy one, but it is the only way to peace, joy, and contentment. Goddess bless you on your beautiful journey.
Michael–
The word ‘collective’ came to me for a few reasons. First, it helps me keep the large view in mind, which is always healing. Second, to approach the overcoming of trauma as a personal struggle feels isolating. Third, part of me might want to become a ‘trauma expert,’ which would make the endeavor a competitive one and therefore traumatizing in its own right.
To recognize that we are all trauma experts, because we are all dealing with some level of trauma, maintains a wide, inclusive, and cooperative tone. Much better than a narrow, exclusive, competitive one…
Thanks for the comment.
–Will
Trabel–
I agree that healing from trauma must be a big part of our future, especially if we want humanity to survive and create a future. The history of civilization has been wracked with one horrible trauma after another, and we need to work to overcome this burden of pain that was accumulated over hundreds of generations.
Thanks for the comment.
–Will
Brenda–
You’re right. To be aware of one’s traumatic history is preferable to being blind to it. With awareness comes greater capacity for action.
I appreciate your input and am glad to hear such healing in your words.
–Will
Once again, you are speaking my language, Will. It’s almost spooky. Spooky action at a distance….
Blogging is a weird thing. Maybe if we had grown up with this internet phenomena, it wouldn’t feel so strange? I don’t know. It feels to me like connection, and it feels like disconnection, both. Sometimes I feel like I’m a kid sitting alone in my bedroom talking to invisible make-believe friends. But… the difference is that I know the people on the other end of this are as real as I am.
Remember the chat rooms of the late 1990s? I joined a couple of chat groups back in those days. One day someone was snippy in a chat room, and someone else took offense. Then a third person said, “You shouldn’t take this so seriously, this isn’t real life!”
Then I came back with this: “I believe this is as real as it gets. Who are we, if not our thoughts and our words?”
Lady Quixote aka Elaina
Lady Quixote–
Sorry for the delay in response. My blogging is all messed up right now. But judging from what you’ve written here, I think you understand.
Blessings,
–Will
I understand completely, my internet friend. Thank you for replying, I’ve been wondering how you’re doing. But don’t feel you need to reply to this, just take care of you, wherever that leads you.
I’m taking care of me these days, and believe I’m coming along. I have lately decided to use my real name, Lynda, rather than the Elaina of PTSD-is-Normal, or Lady Quixote of windmill-tilting lore. I think I’m OK with just being me today, and that seems to be an improvement.
Lynda
