Day 5 Thoughts on day five journal

The journaling exercise really helped me today and gave me a lot to think about and strategies going forward.

I'm pondering trauma and our society's interpretation of it. For me, I always thought of trauma as this one, really horrific event that causes catastrophic damage on an individual and can cause PTSD. I guess I basically have thought it's a somewhat reserved term for people who have gone through something really unfathomable. But after today's journaling (simply choosing something from the childhood list to write about) I'm thinking twice.

Without going into too much detail, I don't remember much of my childhood, but I do remember the feeling of fear and anxiety. I know why - one was an ongoing situation, the other was one pretty bad experience, and they were both related. After writing about all this I'm realizing that this was traumatic for me, but I've never allowed myself to validate it as so. I tried to just brush it off and ignore it, like it wasn't as bad as other people's trauma, so I couldn't call it that for myself and had to be strong and ignore it as just a childhood that was not ideal.

I'm now starting to consider how much of this plays into my current situation. Not only the experience(s) of trauma, but also denying myself the validation and experience of it.

Anyway, just beginning to wonder if it's time for me to start honoring my experiences and start thinking more outside the box, and into the gray areas.