Trauma and recovery
a disruption in the direction of healing
It took me too long to get to a place of healing. Dealing with my traumatic history was something that I continued to run from. When I was in active addiction I was plagued by thoughts and questions like why do I need to use to feel normal, or calm?
“Why am I so crazy?”
“What’s wrong with me?”
Even in sobriety, I often wondered:
“If I am alcohol and drug-free, why am I still hurting so much?”
I thought that ending the addiction (or at least stalling it) was enough. The flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, depression, lingering toxic stress, trust issues, relationship disasters, boundary issues, disordered eating, and trouble sleeping—I thought that somehow it was all going to magically disappear after I quit drinking and drugging.
It didn’t.
Maybe drinking and drugging isn’t your thing. Maybe it’s more like shopping, binge-watching, or having lots of sex (or even sexual fantasies). Humans are a creative species. We’ve come up with a whole array of options for escape. There are about as many ways to become numb as there are cowboy dramas with hunks on horseback.
Did you know that during a traumatic event, the body and mind tries to protect itself?
The body and brain shuts down all non-essential processes and can get stuck in survival mode. This is when the sympathetic nervous system increases stress hormones and prepares the body to fight, flee, or freeze.
Trauma propels the body and nervous system into a state that causes us to be unable to self-regulate. In other words, we are in overdrive.
And what does this overdrive lead us to?
That’s right: the need to numb and escape.
Cue the latest season of Yellowstone.
Not surprisingly, our systems get all sorts of messed up. Our nervous systems get stuck in the “on” position and lead us to be overstimulated, unable to calm, and always in a state of “fight or flight” or near it. Or if not this—feeling numb or detached or disassociated.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, who wrote a foundational work on trauma called The Body Keeps the Score, asserts that “as long as the trauma is not resolved, the stress hormones that the body secretes to protect itself keep circulating, and the defensive movements and emotional responses keep getting replayed.” [1]
It’s no wonder that so many of us turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms to ease this suffering, one of the most popular being substances like alcohol and other drugs.
Regardless of what comes first, the unhealthy coping or the trauma, we need to start talking about it. What happened, how we feel today, and importantly, how its lineage creeps up our family tree like Emerald Ash Borer.[2]
When we recognize the patterns, we can start to rebuild.
Healing is not a mystery. It’s not reserved for the ultra-religious or perfect AA member or lifelong therapist’s couch sitter. Healing can be a choice. Each day that we have is an opportunity to choose to do the next right thing. To show up. To feel.
Sometimes, this next right thing is choosing to embrace all of our story, including the painful parts we’d rather stay buried. Not to stay there, but to learn and grow beyond them so we can be fully present for the next amazing chapter.
Sometimes the next right thing is being open to a movement of God, a cleaning out, a starting again. Understanding our recovery in a new way: in light of the traumas we’ve experienced. Maybe your next right thing is a disruption in the direction of healing.
Have you read my new book Downstairs Church: Finding Hope in the Grit of Addiction and Trauma Recovery? If not, it’s available wherever you buy books and if you can’t buy for any reason, shoot me a message and I’ll send you a copy. This is how much I believe you need to read this.
What have you learned from the recovery road (this includes trauma recovery). I’d love to hear your story. Send me a message. I’d be honored to hear from you.
[1] Van Der Kolk, Bessel, M.D., The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2014), 206.
[2] Emerald Ash Borer is a beetle that
is native to north-eastern Asia that feeds on the Ash tree species, devouring forests and neighborhoods of this waning species of tree. We’ve had to have several of these trees cut down in our yard in Eastern Tennessee because they’ve been infected.
It took a long time (and will likely continue until the day I die) learning to SHED THE SHAME. It was paid for once and for all by Christ. Obliterated. Removed. Destroyed. Wiped clean. Praise God.
This was a good read.
I believe that getting to the root and pulling it out is best. It's hard and messy and it definitely hurts but how else do we move from that situation? I also believe in accountability "my safe person" when I'm having a moment I know I can reach out at any time.