My Trauma is the Most Expensive Thing I Own
Reclaiming your voice and your story in a world that may never understand
I’m currently reading The Women by Kristin Hannah. Have you read it yet?
This book is incredible so far. Without giving too much away, it’s about the women who served in Vietnam and the realities of that war—and the aftermath that came with it. I reached a part last night that hit me so deeply it inspired me to write today. It sparked that kind of moment where you feel your inner light turned on.
As I put the book down, I felt something stirring within me, asking a big question, “What do I really want to do in my life?”
Mainly that question comes from the fact that I am very passionate about teaching on the subject of trauma. The story doesn’t explicitly name ‘trauma’ and ‘PTSD’ (which makes sense for the era, when there wasn’t much language around it), but it paints a vivid picture of what unacknowledged, unprocessed trauma can do to an individual, to families, and to entire communities. The long-term costs of denying pain are brutal—and sadly, it’s still relevant today.
There is so much sadness and grief to witness someone who has no language for what they are experiencing, watching them struggle to get themselves out of it to no avail (and not for their lack of trying), and to see that the people around them treating them in harmful ways (sometimes intentionally, a lot of the time unintentionally) because they don’t have the tools to help the get the people the support and help they need. This is a big part of my own story.
This theme feels personal to me. My own journey with trauma has been costly in so many ways: my time, energy, social connections, emotional well-being, and at times, my sanity and sense of safety. It’s why I do the work I do now as a trauma practitioner because this work matters. When I began to understand that I wasn’t “crazy,” that what I was experiencing were trauma responses and symptoms—finally naming it, addressing it, and starting to heal—it gave me my life back. Or, more accurately, it allowed me to live, not just survive.
It is so important for trauma survivors to be able to define trauma, name it, begin the inner work to heal it, get support from safe others to cultivate hope that there is a way forward and that they don’t have to stay stuck in that chaos forever.
No, I’ve never been to war or in a war zone like the main character, Frankie, but there were multiple scenarios in the book that I deeply related to. And I believe that we need to start there with the definition of trauma because I know a lot of people suffer the most from invalidation of their pain and trauma.
The definition of trauma that I like to use is “anything that your system registered as too much too soon, too much for too long or not enough for too long” (Definition from Duros & Crowley). And whatever your system registered as such shaped your system to move away from connection and toward protection. And in a state of protection, survival is the only goal and the system is closed off to connection and change.
You can see the domino effect that can have on a person in that alone.
Spoiler alert: I will be referencing parts of the book throughout the newsletter, so if you haven’t read the book and are wanting to, read at your own risk and know that I will be doing my best to share lightly and not try to give too much away.