Journey Through Trauma

New Definitions and Considerations

I’ve started Gretchen L. Schmeltzer’s book on trauma, entitled Journey Through Trauma: A Trail Guide to the 5 Phase Cycle of Healing Repeated Trauma.

She defines trauma as something that utterly shatters you. (And what gets shattered differs from person to person (p. 3).

She also notes the importance that stories have on us, as human beings. But that trauma disturbs our sense of time and therefore, the continuation of our stories.

For many trauma survivors, there is only a before and after to the traumatic event. It defines our life now. After the event, life forever changes and the old life is forever gone. So, instead, we work to heal and to create from our brokenness and pieces, struggling to assemble our parts, despite the wounds and gaping holes to our selves. To create our mosaic from the shattered remains.

The deaths of my brother and father, at their own hands, shattered me. As did the cataclysmic betrayal of my former partner.

But I continue onward, on my healing journey, or as Smeltzer puts it, my hero journey—one that both recognizes my wounds, my resilience and perservence to continue forward, to heal and to progress.