Sharing – Trauma Stands Between Us and Healthy Communication
I’ve seen this play out over the years in my own life, and in interactions with many a survivor online and in person.
“One way our past affects us is by clouding our reactions to present events with emotions based on similar experiences in our pasts. A conversation happening in the present can stir up memories of the past, even if we don’t realize it, and we often don’t. For people who have been through trauma, these trauma reactions can be even stronger and more frequent, and they can come between us and healthy communication in our relationships
Our trauma taught us how to react during childhood in ways that are, in fact, not at all appropriate to the reality of adult life. Things that remind us of our abuse can set off a panic in us, causing us to do, and say, things that are not appropriate to the current situation, and people on the receiving end of that communication can have a difficult time understanding what has happened. Interactions between survivors can be rife with underlying messages and reactions that have nothing to do with the current situation because we are all bringing our own trauma into the conversation.
It takes time to learn how to stop those automatic responses. The article below might be a good place to start thinking about ways we can grow to do that because it can be done.
