So often, this trauma lives within in our bodies, trapped by years of neglect and self-abuse. And if you have struggled for a long time, these emotional responses can almost become routine, like riding a bicycle or brushing your teeth--patterns of behavior so familiar we can scarcely imagine a different way of being. Our feelings become a part of us, like breath to air, and we hardly know who are anymore. The trauma, ingrained in our DNA, pushes us into these behavioral habits and turns us upside down.
The world inside us can be far more troubling than what lies beyond the trappings of our body.
Emotion regulation is a tricky thing. Our responses can be so strong at times that it's impossible to distinguish reality from fiction. Our feelings can tell us truths that we are so certain are accurate, that we behave out of them without a second thought. I have, very frequently, been beholden to my emotional states. Later, back in my "wise mind" I could recognize my intensity as trauma responses, my body and brain working together to keep me safe from whatever perceived threat had triggered me prior. But the coming of this realization was always followed by the weight of unbearable shame--a crushing belief in my own unrelenting badness, which seemed to me to be both automatic and inescapable.
When I am in the dark place, it feels like there are two tiny versions of myself inside my heart. One is angry, volatile. Her rage is unmeasurable, uncontainable, and she is a danger to herself and others. Because she is so caged in she wants to hurt herself, she wants punish the people who have hurt her but mostly, she wants to punish herself. Her hate runs white hot, deep in her veins like lava, ready to self-destruct with little thought to the consequences. Her pain is so unbearable that it is explosive, shaking the bars of her cell and screaming relentlessly to be let out.
The other version is very, very afraid. She sits in a corner of her own free will, one that is both dark, and damp. She is huddled under the weight of her own body, tiny and scared, tears of grief silently sliding down her little face. She makes no noise, has no requests, and desperately wants to hide from that other person. She is sad, and alone, a ghost of a child who once existed. She will not come out under any circumstances because she does not trust that she will be safe in my care.
Two versions, two ends of the spectrum. I learned to manage--pushed into corners and cells by a system within that seemed to be monitored by something else all together.
When I finally went to therapy and got on medication, it was like walking normally for the first time. I didn't know it was possible to wake up and not want to die, to get through a day without a panic attack or to believe that maybe, just maybe, I was alright.
And then this year, I went to neurofeedback. After a series of personal losses, I realized that while I had done great deal of cognitive work, my body was still wrecked by all those years of practiced chaos. I retrained my brain to not go into autopilot at the slightest trigger, I got some distance from my emotional selves, some distance that allowed me to sit with my pain in a newly compassionate way.
Instead of being pushed into emotional states I found I was being pulled towards my hurting selves. What did they need? What were they saying to me? Could I accept the parts of myself that I had tried so hard to ignore? The parts of myself I had deemed bad, and unworthy of love and belonging?
Many of my clients think that they are coming to therapy to "fix themselves". Maybe they have behaviors that fill them with shame, histories marked by their own self-destruction. But what I have found over and over and over again is that it is not what we are running from that matters, but what we are running to. We won't get anywhere trying to escape the versions of ourselves we are too ashamed to hold. It's like not watering a plant and expecting it to grow.
We all have parts of ourselves that are hurting, parts that are not reflective of who we are at our center. Parts that we acted out of to protect, parts that didn't know any better.
But if we can acknowledge that and love ourselves anyway, we have a chance at healing.
It's not about rejecting our bad in favor of good.
It's about taking our good and sitting with our bad.
Instead of pushing these parts into corner and cells, we gently pull them towards the light.
So this year, I'm not making resolutions.
I'm not pushing or punishing myself, I'm not hoping to be someone different.
Instead, I am listening. I am being still and quiet, I am letting my hurting parts speak and tell me what it is they most need.
I am being pulled towards the light.
Which--as it turns out, has been inside all along.
I just had to know where to find it.
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