On trauma responses and healing
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I love my demons
'Cause they keep me company, yeah - Saturday, Kids in Glass Houses
One of the many issues that comes with healing from a traumatic childhood is the realisation that how many of your ‘personality traits’ or ‘quirks’ are actually trauma responses. These are often things that kept younger me ‘safe’, whether that was always having an exit plan (never feeling safe or stable) or loving to cook (I grew up food deprived for a while).
Leaving aside the existential weirdness that comes from realising your personality is actually a dozen trauma responses in a trench coat, then there’s the work of unlearning, changing, or stopping them.
Some of my trauma responses were easier to unlearn than others, and some only tend to pop up when I’m stressed or anxious. Some of them I’ve kept and figured out what I like about them and focused on that, rebuilding those associations. Cooking is one I kept, I just try to stockpile food less. Taking on all the chores myself is one I’m slowly learning to dismantle. Asking for and accepting help is always something that requires some effort, though I can ask for some low key things without shrivelling up in shame.
The thing is there is no ‘before’ for me, my first traumatic memory is from when I was five. I can only move forward and figure out my personality as I go. People often say that they like how I am always myself and always authentic, and the truth is I literally can’t be any other way. There’s me, that I’ve had to build and clean and grit my teeth to build. I’m damn proud of who I am, and how much I’ve grown. Quite frankly, I’m not gonna not be myself, I’ve lost a lot of time to trauma already.
But back to trauma responses: The thing I found the most helpful for my healing has been talking about them in terms of safety and survival. My trauma responses are the reason I’m here now. They kept me safe and alive. They’re the reason I’m here, able to work on healing. Yes, they’re not needed and some are unhelpful now, but that doesn’t take away what they did for me.
So I honour them. I find out where they came from, why I use them, what triggers them. What need do they fulfil? Can I get that need fulfilled in a better way? I honour them, then I slowly put them aside, and try something new.
I’m not a fan of using terms like ‘maladaptive coping mechanisms’, at least not unless someone chooses to label their own mechanisms that way. Like, yeah, my dissociation was terrifying at times, and feeling not real is weird on an existential level, but at the time, it was the best way I could protect myself. While I work to keep myself present now and try to only dissociate deliberately, I can do that my essentially being gentle but firm to myself, not calling it maladaptive, or bad.
I will never not be grateful for past me for getting me to here, but the best way to honour them is to take this time and space to heal, to move on, to make them feel safe and loved, just like they should’ve been when they were five.