(For a more comprehensive look at my journey in 2018, see my blog post The Weight of What Happened)
Hey, five-years-ago-me,
It’s springtime again, the season of memories again, flowers blooming and sun warming and PTSD knocking again.
Like every year since, I wouldn’t need a calendar to know what time of year it is. This body of ours still reminds me, feeling the memories without even trigger, breath spontaneously shallow, thoughts swirling with potential catastrophes.
I am so afraid.
Still.
For half a decade I have been so. very. afraid.
Do you remember that terror that swallowed you? That changed you? It is still here. Quieter. More controlled. But please don’t think you need to get over it. Please don’t look ahead and put expectations on yourself, on your fear, of a timeline of healing, a deadline for being afraid.
Because like every year, there’s the added weight of personal pressure: I should be more healed than I am.
It’s been five years, and I think to myself four and a half years of being well, things going well, fears not coming true. Four and half years of health and healing and having. Shouldn’t I be better than I am? More healed than I am?
Then I remember the other very real difficulties and losses in those four and a half years and I remember one of the hardest parts of trauma- the way it tries to negate other losses. Your going through Trauma will try to minimize your future trauma. But the reality is that you will walk through very deep losses and hard changes with a limp, because five years ago you were wounded in some of the deepest ways, and every wound since then has been on top of that. Why would I question my healing?
As you continue forward, celebrate it- celebrate the very real healing that has undoubtedly happened, the fact that each of these five years has held progress, and no, there’s no reason you should feel like you should be further along than you ever are.
“There’s no reason you should feel like you should be further along than you ever are.”
Five years is a long time. But it’s also not. Not when the starting point on the timeline is catastrophe. Not when some things will stay lost, and until heaven will always remain broken.
You need to know that trauma doesn’t stay on a spot of the timeline. It will be carried with you, carried forward, shadowing the whole unfolding. It may feel lighter as time goes on, sometimes.
But five years later, it still feels like yesterday.
The doctor’s voice.
Is there anyone with you?
My children.
No, I mean anyone who can drive.
I know, you were waiting for that call, waiting to see if you had miscarried for the second time, and yet as soon as she asked that a new storm descended.
Having to rush to the ER. Not able to process losing the baby because of being at risk of dying yourself.
Getting chemo to treat it.
Nearly dying in front of your children anyways.
Emergency hysterectomy. Bladder injury. Seemingly endless doctor appointments.
And in this, almost losing your dear mama-in-law. And receiving her ALS diagnosis.
And this is all the brief word-condensing of a storm that kept pounding over five months of Trauma and in it all I know, your mind broke, neuro system shattered, and sometimes I still have to remind myself I went from not being able to talk to where I am today, so yes I may still be deeply marked by fear but I can function and I can feel and I have experienced so much healing.
Give yourself time. You can’t talk about it? That’s okay. You will one day. You are afraid to go home from the hospital? That’s okay. Don’t nod and smile to people about it. It’s not exciting for you, it’s terrifying. Of course it is.
Stop apologizing to every worker in the medical offices for crying hysterically at every appointment. Let yourself weep. They don’t need an explanation. They don’t need the apology. You’re not putting anyone out. You’re in an abyss and you don’t have to feel bad or sorry to anyone else for that.
Stop feeling like you need to help or socialize when people come over to help you. Lay on the couch. Watch TV to get your mind off everything. Lay low because you are low. The best way to function right now is by pausing, retreating, receiving help without guilt.
Let yourself be angry.
Let yourself be sad.
Let yourself be scared to death.
Let yourself refuse meals and sit stoically and stare into space.
Let yourself grieve.
Stay home from church.
Skip the social events.
Weep.
Break something.
Scream.
Take up the offers for childcare so you can lose it in isolation.
I know you don’t want to seem ungrateful- ungrateful for all the help, ungrateful you didn’t die- and I know you’re afraid to acknowledge the horrors that unfolded because you know it’s just too much to process well, but stop feeling like you have to process it well.
Process it poorly, process it as you can, process it haphazardly.
It’s not the time to move on. It’s not the time to be normal. Or nice.
It’s the time to hurt, to be wounded, and don’t be afraid you’ll get stuck there. Because part of letting yourself be there is what will eventually get you unstuck.
Because you can’t move forward until you acknowledge where you are.
Five years later, you will be so thankful to be alive. So thankful for what the suffering taught you. So thankful for the provision in that dark season.
But you’ll wake up one morning in this anniversary season from a Trauma nightmare, one of your worst ones yet and it’s so awful you can’t even speak it.
And in that nightmare one of the things you keep doing is screaming. The deepest, loudest, most full-bodied scream you can produce, and you’ll wonder after you wake up, if I had let myself just scream back then would I not be screaming in my nightmares now?
Five years later, I’ve learned to be more gentle with myself and my Complex Trauma. The kids get cartoons all morning long. I get back in bed with my journal and coffee. I stare into space. I give myself zero pressure for the day ahead. I let myself do some processing and then snuggle the kids when I’m ready and send them to an early quiet time so I can watch TV and turn off my mind. Then we go out into the sunshine where I just sit and watch them play.
This day is not going to be about being productive or socializing with friends or having expectations. It’s going to be about caring for my traumatized self and healing. And when those lies in the corner of my mind whisper that I’m being lazy or not strong enough or not healed enough I’ll tell them they’re wrong and keep being gentle with myself.
Be gentle with yourself. There is a time to weep, as Ecclesiastes tells us, and that time is now. The times to laugh will come again, but they will come through your weeping.
You will laugh again.
And weep again.
And the seasons will continue.
And five years later you won’t regret a single tear shed, only the ones held in.
All those tears shed, God holds and He’s waiting open handed to keep catching more.
He’ll keep tears-holding and flowers-blooming and springs-creating and trauma-comforting.
For five years and a lifetime to come.