Trauma

  • Sharing – Others Have it Worse

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I think there maybe a couple of reasons why we fall into this. Al mentions one of the big ones, this becomes a way to avoid really facing our own issues. Since our issues are “not as bad” as someone else we can point to, this becomes our excuse to simply accept them instead of trying to work on ourselves and do the hard work of healing. Similarly, I also think this is an example where so many of us don’t see ourselves as worthy of getting better. Our issues aren’t as bad, so we don’t really deserve to get treatment, or get support, or even admit that we need it. The truth, though, is that everyone is worth being supported and getting help when necessary. There is no one in this world who has never needed any support, no matter what kinds of trauma and struggles they are having, or how bad someone else might have it.

  • Sharing – Validation Is Important in Supporting Trauma Survivors

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    It’s true, there are people all around you right now who have experienced horrific traumas in their lives, and the reason you don’t know is that they don’t feel safe talking about it. They’ve lived years, even decades, with this truth, only to be met with invalidating remarks like “Why can’t you just let it go?” or “you should be over that by now”, “it wasn’t that bad”, etc.

    When your trauma, the thing you are struggling to overcome, is met with that kind of response you aren’t going to rush out to talk about it, which is a shame because talking about it to people who can be validating to us is one of the best ways to actually heal from it and have it no longer dominate our daily lives.

  • Sharing – 5 Powerful Self-Care Tips for Abuse and Trauma Survivors

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    How often do I see survivors talking about being healed as if there’s some end where they are done and never have to think about the trauma again, and berating themselves for not having yet reached this state when it doesn’t really work that way. Self-care and learning never stop. We never reach a point where we know everything and live happily ever after. Real-life does not have a happily ever after, it has ups, downs, twists, and turns, and healing will not be any different.

  • Sharing – “Tetris for Trauma” Viral Twitter Thread: A Master Class in Misleading Psych Research

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Again, as Peter goes on to describe the issue is not that people might suddenly play some Tetris when dealing with trauma. That’s probably not going to harm them much, it’s that we, as a society, will come to expect that is the “magic pill” to help everyone deal with trauma and start dismissing it as something that’s easy to fix with some Tetris when it’s much, much more complicated than that. We shouldn’t lose sight of that fact.

  • Sharing – 6 Sneaky Signs You’re Experiencing Ongoing Trauma From The Pandemic

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    What did surprise me, though, was that I actually saw all 6 of these signs in myself. All 6. (I also don’t think they are all that sneaky, but then again, while I know I’ve been having worse anxiety lately, all of these did sort of sneak up on me.)

    So, I don’t know about you, but I know for sure that I am now hyper-vigilant, negative, anxious, withdrawn, exhausted, and dealing with more physical aches and pains than I ever have.

    This article helps me realize that it’s not really a coincidence. How about you?

  • Sharing – Why Healing from Trauma Can Get Harder As We Age

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    As I’ve said before, we were too busy simply surviving the abuse to learn the things we were supposed to learn as children, so we often start out behind in various ways.

    Of course, in order to learn those things we need to do the work as an adult, to first unlearn the things we learned, and then learn the things we didn’t learn to start with. This is, perhaps, one of the real tragedies of so many survivors not even telling anyone, let alone starting this work, for decades.

    That’s so many more years of doing the things we need to unlearn, and undoing that is just going to be more difficult the longer this has been true for us. So, what can we do?