Hidden Scars

The most common reaction my clients have when I mention trauma is denial. “It was forever ago,” and “I’ve moved on.” Often these protests are followed by, “I don’t dwell on the past.” 

This is the pernicious part. Until you see it, your mind’s response to trauma keeps you from seeing it. 

Then, with my clients, we read together the description of what it’s like to live with undealt-with trauma in the past. The anxious thoughts; the avoidance; the guilt; the shame. And all those unexplained physical experiences. 

We can read that description because undealt-with trauma has a predictable way it lives and perpetuates in the mind. It shapes what a person can see, and what a person cannot see. 

It shapes how a person experiences life itself, and all too often, what they miss out on in life. 

I had a relative (she’s since passed away many years ago). She lived through traumas before trauma was recognized. Over time, her avoidance led her to shrink her world to the house. Doctors diagnosed her as agoraphobic. And that wasn’t entirely untrue. Yet, it wasn’t the entire story either. 

Reading this today, you are overwhelmingly likely to have experienced events or situations in your life that were traumatizing for you. It’s hard to fight the impulse to ignore it. To push away the memory. To submerge the emotions in a sea of business.

You deserve better. You deserve to live life without the guardrails of what your trauma won’t let you go near. Can I gently challenge you to consider that maybe that thing you’ve so long avoided should be surfaced, confronted, and finally attended to?