What’s Healing & What Helps Most?

Someone asked in a comment how to heal from developmental trauma. I was stumped. Am stumped. I gave the standard replies:

• yoga
• free-writing
• playing with puppies in the sunshine
• finding others
• telling the truth to self and others
• more yoga
• guided imagery

But it felt incomplete. Another woman said she was in therapy and read studies about recovery. They helped some but what she wanted was proof from real-life woman who had lives that they managed, enjoyed and were full.

I don’t know why it was so hard to respond when I wanted the exact same thing when I was younger.

And sometimes now.

I guess I feel heavy because so many people are in pain – right now.

And though it’s two and half decades since I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress there is still so much pain and trauma and suffering in the world and many suffering are so young.

So many people think they are alone even though they – we – are not. How do we all find one another and see we are a community? How do we life each other up more and become more readily identifiable to one another?

I have felt alone in recovery and healing= even when statistically those with post-traumatic stress and developmental trauma are staggeringly common. I just wanted to know other survivors were out there. I didn’t want to be in group therapy or with people in the same or worse pain. I wanted to be around survivors who had found their way through pain and could share some lessons. All sorts of witnessing and example are necessary.

If we only see and hear from self-identified survivors in pain we don’t know, see and prove the joy that is possible and the health and well-being we can have.

This is still exceptionally rare to find. Some of this is because there’s so much silence about violence and childhood abuse and developmental trauma. People who have personal and professional lives they love often don’t want to be be pitied or judged or stigmatized by others about the causes and impact of traumatic stress.

That’s true.

But there’s more to it as well.

Love, used to feel like rain water and I felt like wax that couldn’t absorb or let love in.

When it came towards me and I had it I didn’t trust it. Not just romantic love but love in the form of warmth or kindness. I was so suspicious I dismissed it and sometimes still do. I didn’t know how to forge connections and join and participate in groups working towards a similar vision.

I was an outsider, a watcher, a critic and reviewer. I didn’t see myself as pro-active participant and creator but on te the sidelines even when I wasn’t.

I don’t expect warmth and honesty and love and so sometimes I don’t know how to lay out the welcome mat for those things. I was so busy making sure there was no danger at the door that I forget to encourage in all those that were safe, loving, reliable and present.

I didn’t know how to throw parties or initiate get-togethers with others because honestly – I hated those things. I thought it was kind not to inflict them on others rather than to try to create a form of togetherness I wanted or felt comfortable sharing or hosting.

This is still tricky for me.

I looked for an already formed community. How to risk being a part of one, showing up or staying long enough to form something was too hard or confusing.

But I craved community all the while.

I’m not sure when or how or if I could have done it sooner.

Now that I feel centered and embodied and grounded (most of the time) t feels like there’s not enough time for all the things I want to learn, share, experience and I genuinely have some optimism.

It doesn’t mean life is perfect or I never have obstacles or problems or issues. I do. I just don’t feel like I’m less than or damaged for life just because I’m impacted by the past or trauma. There were years I didn’t think this possible.

I’ve got something to share and say about a particular topic not a lot of people talk openly or honestly about – and so I do. But honestly, there are so many other subjects meaningful and important to me too.  I jut write less about them because it’s not hard to find others writing on other topics. It’s still rare to find people writing on this topic.

I want to travel, explore, feel and discover new landscapes, people and also to enjoy and slow down for the sacred ordinary moments too.

I wish I had learned earlier to appreciate and feel and take in joy and not only wonder, seek and puzzle over what was broken.

But is it possible to feel at ease or in joy, bliss or flow when post-traumatically stressed though and in survival mode? I don’t think it is. Not usually anyhow.

Can you tell someone battling to survive to just chill, relax and smell the roses when they are in agony without it being minimizing? I’m not sure how.

Can healing be done is a more measured or paced way while or must it always be an urgent and epic battle when one is having nightmares, flashbacks or in grief or panic?

Maybe it would have been better for my own healing if I was more relaxed and less intense, had done more yoga and less therapy – the thing is – I don’t know if I would have believed it.

When I was in pain and anxious and suffering I couldn’t relax and find any respite in my body.

My brain was  far safer place to live than my body which scared me.

Now, at midlife, I want to tell younger survivors, to go easy on themselves and that it’s not a race and that they deserve as much joy, ease and peace as anyone.

I also know people are aching to be heard, to feel hopeful and inspired and just to know that others have been where they have been.

I guess I want to say, when you feel more safe you will be able to feel more joy, hope and love in your life.

It will happen much more easily when you are able to slow down, breathe and be in your body. And the fact that you can’t is hard and I’m sorry because I know it’ difficult and makes life harder and more complicated.

It’s hard to know so many people are in pain and struggling and right this very minute hurting. But those of us who have been there and are still there sometimes have to say, with authority, it gets better. It does get better and easier and more relaxed and joyful.

There’s pain and grief. Maybe forever and how could it be otherwise? We were hurt, changed, violated and that is worthy of grief and cause for pain. It’s not wrong that we feel feelings or acknowledge difficulty or loss. It doesn’t mean we aren’t moving on. It means we are human and healing and have feelings.

All that loving self-talk and compassionate self-acceptance sounded like blah-blah-blah when I was younger. I didn’t know what it really even meant.

What might have helped most is the truth.

It’s brutally hard and exhausting and taxing at times. It’s warrior word and hard as hell. It doesn’t stay only that or all the time.

It might have helped to hear, “You aren’t wrong. It is easier to be happy, whole, relaxed and loving when not in terror or post-traumatically stressed. Or when you have familial or financial support. Yup. True True and I’m sorry if you have fewer resources than you need or deserve. That’s hard and real too.

I can’t say exactly how long it takes for anyone only that it’s a place possible to get to. It’s possible and worth it and others have and are walking that path in the past, now and will in the future and you might be able to help them.

Photo credit: Margaret Bellafiore

And if you are reading this and aren’t there yet, in this moment or in general, I’m so sorry it’s hard.that needs to be said and validated too.  It can be hard at times. It gets less so and less often, at least in my experience so I want to offer that possibility too.

I think, being real and honest and hearing from others on the same path not asking for money or co-pays or expecting me to give trigger warning would have helped most.

And writing.

And yoga.

And sunshine and puppies. 

And flowers.

Those too.