The Truth About Trauma

Emotional and psychological traumas happen to everyone. It can be caused by a one time event, ongoing relentless stress or commonly overlooked events such as break-up/divorce, surgery, humiliating or disappointing experience. Not talking about your trauma will not make it go away.  The more you push it down and try to forget about it, the more it will try to come up and remind you that it exists. It comes up as nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, panic attacks, anger, sadness, uncontrolled emotions and other unhealthy ego defenses.  It has different ways of reminding you that it is unresolved and it needs to be processed.

[caption id="attachment_10150" align="aligncenter" width="300"] At a Women's Wellness & Empowerment Conference, where I shared my story.[/caption]

Talking about your trauma is the start of the healing process.  The more you talk about your trauma and process it, the sooner it becomes just a fact - an event that happened to you but does not define you.  It may take a while and it is scary, but the healing starts when we start to share our story with a professional. There are different ways of processing and talking about your traumas.  A trusted trauma therapist can help or a supportive group can be very beneficial.

[caption id="attachment_10151" align="aligncenter" width="300"] kathmandu, nepal where I shared my story[/caption]

I used to not want to talk about what happened to me in the past.  I hated thinking about it. Talking about it made me angry and cry.  Then through sharing my story in therapy sessions, workshops and groups, I noticed that I don't cry as much anymore.  I used to cry every time I start talking about my trauma.  Then I noticed that after speaking about it a few times, I only get choked up.  After a few more counseling sessions and support groups, I can talk about it without any tears.  I also remember writing about it and that was very hard but it was the "release" that I needed for a while. Now I can talk about it without any emotions attached to it.  My trauma is just a fact that happened to me.

[caption id="attachment_10152" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Accra, Ghana, Africa where I also shared my story and listened to others people's stories.[/caption]