Complex Traumas

....and their complexities

Sounds like redundancy, I know, but, bear with me:

I read this quote that helped me unpack it a bit and understand it more:

“Complex trauma is fundamentally relational trauma.

The only way you could heal from relational trauma was through practicing that relational dance with other people.

Not just reading self-help books or meditating alone.

We had to go out and practice maintaining relationships in order to reinforce our shattered belief that the world could be a safe place.”

~Stephanie Foo in What My Bones Know.

Why I think this is so crucial is it speaks to me twofold, both in the deaths of all my family members and the two suicides, and also in recovery from a four year long relationship with a narcissist.

Because in both of the above cases, those closest to me hurt me, deeply.

Even my dear mother, and while I do not begrudge her, or even my brother and father at this point—I see them as all in deep pain, rooted in untreated mental illnesses and trauma, but still—

Who do you reach out to normally when you are hurting? Who do you look to for support?

You often times look to a partner or to a strong familial foundation.

But I had to become my own foundation. I had to be the fucking rock.

I often feel not to be the case. Not to be an island, weak to do this as someone extremely extroverted who thrives on socializing and emotional support. I would have done well with a functional extended family and in a collectivist culture. I know myself I did well living in Indonesia, after establishing community.

But, still, right here, with this— I firmly believe it to be one of the most important lessons of my life.

This is why my forties are going to be even more powerful for me in my growth and identity than my thirties.

Because as Foo’s quote reveals, the issue is to be human is to live that paradox—the great need for solitude and for support and social connection, for belonging.

All humans are constantly in a dance of trying to figure out this delicate balance of what works for them, in part based on wherever they fall on the spectrum of whether socializing energizes them or depletes them, and to what degree.

However, those with complex trauma—meaning many traumas that have occurred in sequence and the brain chemistry/physiology of the brain is altered—returning to a norm, a state of homeostasis, is challenging.

It is something we work toward. Through therapy. EMDR. Craniasacral therapy. Sound and light therapy. Somatic healing. Biofield tuning. Meditation. Etc, etc.

It is a journey.

And most challenging, it is body work but it also involves learning to trust again.

Trusting ourselves.

Trusting others. Even if we may know that we deeply need others, sometimes those closest to us have been the deepest sources of our pain.

Because many of us have multiple examples of those who promised to always be there, to be your family, yet they have dissolved, evaporated into the periphery.

I firmly believe in a quote that I heard recently:

That none of us are really fine, but that:

“If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.”

~Richard Rohr

I think the balance thereof is in recognizing that we are all in some degree of pain. It becomes what we do with it.

Part of our duty as compassionate, empathetic human beings is to recognize others in their suffering.

The other part—and this is my lesson—is to still hold others accountable for their transmission of pain onto others.

Being an adult is being accountable to how we treat others.

No one owns all the suffering in the world. My pain does not matter more than yours and it sure as hell doesn’t give me an excuse to treat other people like shit.

It doesn’t give you that excuse either.

My ex used to accuse me of not being a very clean and organized person. It’s true I am not.

I told my mother this and she said I come by it honestly, as she was not either.

Though I am working on that, as I want to grow and evolve, at the end of the day, I think this—

It is more important to me to be a better person. Rather than have the most pristine bathroom or sparkling kitchen, I will not treat people like shit.

I hold space for others pain, even amidst my own. Because while others frequently downplay their own suffering when they know of my grief and losses, I still say—

Don’t minimize your own grief and losses. They are very real and significant to you. We cannot deny our lived, embodied experiences. We have to own our own stories. They are who we are. We can’t work against them. We have to work with them.

If there’s anything that I have learned, it is that—

Because come on, I mean, really? REALLY??!?!

Who wants to “own” the story of two suicides in the immediate family? And one passive one?

It’s not fun, but we work with the hand that we are dealt.

We grow and try to heal. And hopefully, in the process, act as lamps, guiding or shining on others to help aid them in their healing journeys.

Amen.