There is so much about overcoming trauma from our early years that we don’t talk about

like how some memories are seated in our subconscious like uninvited guests who won’t leave

while others are fuzzy on the details, causing us to question “Did that actually happen the way I remember?”

And how our personalities are masked by conditioned responses that cause confusion for us and our families

i.e., when something doesn’t make sense, we become quiet and consumed by analysis paralysis instead of speaking our mind

or how it feels second nature to shoot down the people and things that make us feel vulnerable instead of admitting that we feel hurt.

A lot of times, we spend so much energy creating what feels like a “normal” baseline when we have no idea what feels normal at all.

In fact, what is often mistaken as “being perceptive” is literally just an attempt to collect data about the people and situations around us

so we can create predictable outcomes, control narratives, and understand how to feel safe existing in those environments.

God forbid if you should be misunderstood in your words and intentions

which triggers the doubling-down of coping mechanisms, the need to repair, and finding the reasons “why” things went wrong.

We want to speak to be heard, but we don’t want to be seen only for what we’ve been through.

We want to speak from the heart, which is hard when we so often feel misunderstood.

Sometimes we give up and say “I’d better not try at all,” which leads to disconnect and resentment toward the rest of the world.

For many, accepting the “devil we know” is all about control.

If we can stay in control of our expectations for a given situation, then we feel ahead of the game.

Stabbing forward into any scenario with the promise of “making our life better” feels scary and threatening because we don’t know what it looks like or what to expect.

This is why so many people who have survived trauma get stuck in a circular loop of bad situations that don’t seem to end.

For others, the temptation to lean into our vices is so overpowering that we struggle with addictive behaviors that consume us.

It’s no wonder how surviving trauma can make someone feel so stuck. Shouldn’t we feel relieved and grateful for making it through?

The survival starts to feel like a stigma.

It’s like, if we hadn’t been born at all, then we would have never had to go through this.

Death feels like a comforting warm blanket that promises to absolve us of our pain. Not that we want to die…

but sometimes living is so exhausting that the hope of a long rest feels nice.

Whether or not we can come to terms with what we’ve been through,

it is harder still to differentiate between who we are and the things that happened to us.

Before long, uncoupling our traumas from our identity feels like an insurmountable task.

The thing about early life adversity is that it becomes our biggest teacher for how to live in a world where not everything is going to be okay.

It’s the thing that refines us, toughens us up, and creates that layer of scar tissue over our heart.

It teaches us to hold on to that toughness without suppressing our spirit.

I’ve learned that part of recovering from adversity is about accepting the cost of having free will:

God enables humans to choose what they like, but it is at the expense of suffering and ill-will by the hands of those who don’t walk in the light.

Indeed, learning to surrender our suffering and finding resolve is our ultimate lesson

but it is just as hard as surviving our trauma in the first place.

The strength and toughness that comes from the scar tissue that’s formed around our hearts is heavy for us to carry, too.

It’s the necessary armor we need that we wish we never had to have.

What I’ve learned the most about trauma, though, is how despite everything, we still get to find ourselves in the middle of it all.

Whether we want to stay lost and hidden away inside of ourselves or come out of the trenches to feel the light on our face is all completely up to us.

We get to make choices about how we want to live in spite of it all

whether to invite forgiveness and grace, or resentment and despair into our stories

and whether or not to open our hearts up to the possibility of something else – something more

we get to own it all.

That’s the beautiful thing that comes out of it, in hindsight

is that it’s ours, and ours alone

so we get to write our own narratives about who we want to be

and that is the question…

who do you want to be, in spite of it all?