Don't shoot another arrow at yourself!

When we bury our traumas, or try to avoid potential triggers, we disallow ourselves the time we need to heal. While on the surface things may seem okay, the impacts of trauma filter through many other aspects of life – influencing relationships, overall mental health, and even the potential for addiction. Facing your trauma, although difficult, positively affects your ability to truly heal and move forward into a happier, healthier, and more balanced life.

Part of the development of these disorders is related to the changes in the brain that happen following trauma. Research has shown that when faced with extreme stress, the body and brain go into a survival mode known as the  freeze state. During this period, people experience symptoms such as not being able to think clearly, a feeling of being out of your body; disassociating, slowed breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure, having difficulty speaking, emotional numbness, feeling or becoming physically ill.

When trauma is not treated, triggers encountered in everyday life may cause these symptoms to occur repeatedly, contributing to poor overall mental health and exacerbating other conditions.

Exposure to trauma, including that experienced in early childhood, can have lasting and profound effects on interpersonal relationships. These can be related to changes in mood or emotions as a result of the trauma, as well as increased social isolation due to attempts to avoid trauma triggers. 

Why you should face your trauma?

Addressing your traumas allows your brain the opportunity to work through the traumatic event in order to heal. While aspects of this process can be painful and frightening, the long-term mental and physical benefits will ultimately lead to a better quality of life. 

Facing trauma helps to improve your resilience, strengthening your ability to manage stress and hardship and fostering the development of new tools by which to cope. 

As you work through your traumas and begin to untangle how it has impacted you, it can help reveal some of the reasons behind your emotional responses and reactions. This can help you be more in touch with your emotions, and in better control of them in stressful situations.

Processing your traumas allows you to reflect on what happened, and if your current patterns of behaviour are unintentionally setting you up for further trauma. The wisdom you gain from your experience can be used to protect yourself and others without limiting your ability to enjoy your life. 

Acknowledging the pain you’ve been avoiding is often the hardest step, yet it marks the true beginning of recovery. When you stop running from past experiences and start observing them with compassion, they lose some of their intensity. This mindful awareness allows you to reconnect with parts of yourself that have been silenced, paving the way for lasting emotional healing.

Like treatment for any injury, the psychological injury of trauma is most effectively treated when you have a strong support network. This includes mental health professionals, who can safely guide you in understanding and processing a traumatic past, as well as loved ones who can provide moral support and comfort as you move through this difficult process. Support groups that bring together people who have had similar experiences can also be reassuring and useful as you can share your challenges, fears, and ideas with others who truly understand what you’re going through. 

But you are saying treatment didn't help you much.

So let me show you an alternate route.

Try to think in this way:

You were abused. Somebody used you. It was their fault, not yours. 

But your mind was conditioned to think that you are at fault, that your body and life 're spoiled because of this. Come out of this indoctrination. 

Now direct the finger at the person who abused you. 

Your life isn't spoiled because of this. It is getting spoiled because of the way you are treating the abuse. 

An arrow was shot at you. But you are shooting another arrow  in the wrong way, at yourself. That increases the amount of pain you are undergoing. 

You are in no way responsible for what has happened. No, your body isn't spoiled and your life isn't ruined. "Spoil and ruined" are not the right words in your case. They are the words that come out of a culturally conditioned mind. 

It should be used in the other person's context. It is his mind that is spoiled, his behaviour is spoiled.

You became a medium that his spoiled mind and behaviour were expressed through.  Who knows how many such media outlets are still there that reflect his spoiled mind.

There will definitely be some stirring in the (liquid) medium because of this. It will take time for the vortex to settle down. That depends on the viscosity, amount of stirring, force used and several other factors of the medium. 

Let me assure  you in the end it will settle down. But don't stir yourself again and again in the wrong way. If you can, stir and shake him. Teach him a lesson. 

Or if you want to do it in another way, forgive and update differently.

You are a human being with emotions. Feel them. Cry if you want to cry. 

But redirect your emotions in the right direction. That will soothe you and comfort you. 

Don't be idle . Immerse yourself in such hard work that can really make you forget what you have undergone. 

As time goes by  your mind will definitely heal. You will be alright to a great extent. 

Now are you ready for this redirection?