I listened to a podcast with Resma Menakem, author of My Grandmother’s Hands, that I read years ago.
In the interview, therapist and trauma specialist, Menakem said this:
“Trauma is too much, too fast, too soon, too long.”
He also notes that there is no repair, that was needed, but it not happen.
I think about how true this is. I think my own losses.
As I write in my book about the loss of my child, my mother and my brother’s death, all within less than three months, I find it staggering.
I knew it was complex grief, and it was. But it was also traumatic—too fast, too soon, all at once. What a hauntingly accurate paradox.
I also think about my mother, brother and I, all of us finding my father’s remains in the days after his death
Too much ,and certainly with no reparative efforts made either.
We didn’t heal.
We should have had a medical waste expert team clean it up and then we all should have dived deep into some major mental health help.
There is a lot of questions in my mind right now—if I had done things differently back in 2015, if I could go back—but that is the never ending downward spiral.
For now—
I will take to heart the words of Stephanie Foo, author of What my Bones Know, (a wonderful memoir), whom today on a video on instagram, said this:
“Self love (and forgiveness) is the path toward healing”
Especially for us in shame spirals.
We need grace and mercy, more often for ourselves.
Trauma is sticky stuff.
It’s easier to look back in retrospect to see how we ought to have done things differently in our healing.