Is there a moment to stop seeing trauma as trauma?

I may be saying something controversial here, but please, bear with me, I am thinking out loud and would love to hear what people think.

It is widely accepted in the TMS community that trauma is most often a cause of psychosomatic conditions. One of the most widely prescribed TMS methods is to dig into your past and investigate the origins of your trauma. ACE score, journaling, TMS therapies of various denominations - a lot of tools are now available to investigate past trauma and to start healing from it. But I have always wondered whether in order to fully heal one must stop using inside themselves the language that reinforces the pain and the self-image of a victim. We sometimes see people on this forum who just can't get out of the loop of dwelling in the trauma. The more they dig into it, the more is their pain. And then they dig into it even more, trying to stop the pain.

I have had some bad experiences in my life when I felt trapped in painful relationships. I remember my dreams still being invaded by those bad people who had been out of my life for decades by then and a terrible sense of self-pity for being still trapped. My healing came when I stopped dwelling on those experiences and stopped regurgitating the pain that I felt. I stopped using the word trauma. I now tell myself that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and that those situations taught me about the need to stand up for myself and about situational awareness which helps to avoid many bad situations. But was I just a lucky person whose traumas weren't that bad, or maybe other people experienced the same?

Most of us in the Western world are living lives of unprecedented comfort, yet, chronic pain and mental illnesses are through the roof, even in very young people. Of course, I am not talking about traumas of rape, terrible sexual abuse, or child abandonment. Even in our relatively comfortable times, some children are raised by drug addicts, are abandoned by their parents, or are trafficked into horrific slavery. But I am referring to the rest of us who never experienced anything that extreme. Do we overuse the word "trauma", while at the same time undervalue our resilience?

Does healing mean finding one's ability to sustain life without falling into the trap of perennial trauma and self-pity?

What are your thoughts?

 

Yes, I have been thinking the same things.
It's still all about the victimization of the mind.
I absolutely look at all of my past experiences as learning situations - good or bad, they have taught me something. Much of what I learned was through the lens of this "hurt child" kind of thing, but now I see it all very differently. I look at it as an adult, while I acknowledge where it came from.
No more victim.

 

@TG957 -Tamara,
I’m so glad you brought this up. Ive been thinking along these lines a lot.

I’m not sure if continued digging in the trauma helps. I think there can be a point of diminishing returns. My original therapy that brought me out of denial was probably useful. I am one of those people that believes you can’t hide your head in the sand, but on the same token, digging in the trauma for too long and in the anger for too long I truly believe is damaging —at least for me! Continually focusing on your identity of trauma does lock you in as a victim. I think at some point you have to cut yourself free of everything you ever lived through and just own your life going forward. Who cares why or how it happened, what are you going to do now?

Some people like Dr. Hanscom talk a lot about how important forgiveness is for healing TMS. This is another avenue to pursue. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anxiety-another-name-pain/202002/forgiveness-is-learned-skill?amp (Forgiveness Is a Learned Skill)

You are right I think this can be a controversial topic. Ultimately, I just hope everyone can heal and find their best path.

Thanks for all you do for everyone on this forum. You really have helped me a lot!

 

I really like this thread. Thank you for @TG957 for starting the conversation. @Diana-M thank you for sharing that personal story. I can understand the digging and not getting anywhere. I feel like I have done that for years and years myself. Therapist number 3 for me, I am on, and fortunately she has been the most helpful. Sometimes I wonder if it’s not the digging we have to keep doing, but, more like what Dan Buglio says, creating safety in the body. I have found that helpful- not curative yet- but helpful. Granted I haven’t been practicing this kind of safety regularly for for an extended period of time. I still get wrapped up in fear. I think it’s important to try to get to the traumas, but sometimes I think just feeling safe is very important too.

 

I think you are so right. People on the forum talk so much about making sure you have soothing experiences mixed in with the trauma excavation. Without the soothing steps, I think you run into problems like I had. I’m glad your third therapist is working for you!

 

I'm stepping away from the forum for now but I wanted to reply to this thread. I've been thinking the same thing for a bit now though @TG957. I don't think it's controversial at all and I applaud you for starting this discussion. I began looking in my past because it's been recommended, and hey, it did help me in my own ways. I think this is where learning more about yourself and what works for you comes in. For me, journaling or deep reflecting never made me feel better, I always felt fake like I was trying to elicit some type of emotion that just wasn't there and the anger that would come out was against the whole thing all together, so I scrapped that. The most I do now is throw some bullets into my notes app of people/things that pissed me off and that's enough for me to feel my emotions. Interestingly enough the bulleted list always seems to take a positive turn where I recount all the cool/fun things I did during the day and that has really been instrumental in everything. There's so many things to be grateful for.

There's a couple videos by Dan Buglio (he is not against journaling) where he addresses someone's frustration, "Dan, but I'm journaling about everything about my life, my darkest trauma, and I'm feeling my emotions, but I'm not getting better what am I missing!?!!!!". Here's one video, where he quotes Dr. Schubiner replying to someone who's clearly grasping at straws (~2:20). He encourages to soothe your brain, get out of those stories that keep those emotional charges activated all the time, and shift your focus to living your life as best as you can.

 

Thanks, @HealingMe ! It’s great hearing what works for you. I like your bulleted list on your phone and thinking about gratitude each day.

 

My last GF told me she suffered from PTSD. I asked her which conflict she had served in?
"What?"
"Which war did you fight in with mortars falling all around you and constantly under attack from armed enemies?"
"None"
"Then don't use that terminology!"

As colorful and verbose as the English language is, we tend to get involved in Histrionics and subsequently lose meanings of words by overusing them, or inappropriately using them... Someone with whom I disagree with politically isn't a "Fascist' or "Nazi"...My Aunt had a tattoo from Auschwitz on her arm... calling a politician a Nazi diminishes her REAL trauma.

I might use words like 'trauma' when I am summing up someone else's experience or speaking broadly to not diminish their experience, but that is precisely why I stopped going to a lot of twelve step meetings. Stanton Peele did a study on two hundred problem drinking men.
The Group of 100 who went to meetings perceived their problem as worse, regardless of the outcome of sobriety.

I found that fascinating.

That is why I perceive stuff, TMS included, as a Spiritual problem. It defuses the victim/perpetrator narrative w/o dismissing that their is something wrong with me...as there is with EVERYBODY.

 

I had a dream some years ago, maybe 10 or so. The dream was super conscious, from another world, from astral world...I have no idea where from. It came with a message:"Just keep your mind clean, just keep it clean. That's all."

It took me some time to understand the real meaning of it. I just let it go, the traumas and dramas. I never think about it. Never. If something makes me remember some dark things, I change my thoughts immediately. I never read about others' dramas either. I never watch traumatic scenes/movies. I never follow the news, only rarely and the minimum. I love comedies and funny things. I read jokes, I keep company with funny and positive people. It's great.

I love keeping my mind clean. It's very healthy. It took me some years to do this but I enjoy it. As a child and teen I was always happy and my mind was at peace. I went back to my natural state now in my fifties.

 

I love this - thank you for sharing this. I am assuming this took you a lot of time and practice to get good at it. What or who was it that inspired you?

 

The dream inspired me.

 

I love that - good for you for listening

 

Not to play the devil's advocate, but the word "trauma" has been used by psychiatrists in a wider context than rape, PTSD, extreme poverty and so on...
Now, if it enhances the victimization of the TMSer... maybe yes, we should take care about using this word so freely. I really don't know, for me it helped understanding my TMS mechanisms actually have been here way before pain.

Anyway, a video about it: