Understanding Takes Time

I’ve spent the majority of my life, trying to please other people. This is a bad habit I continue to have to this day. Although, not as prevalent as it once was, the need to seek approval and validation from others is always lurking within my actions. 

I recently reconnected with two friends of mine, over the past month. We had a falling out over the years and I really didn’t understand the gravity of my capability to not understand my past trauma and the affect it would have on my future endeavors and connections. 

Long story short, I have discovered a lot about myself this past year. I started to unravel the depth of my past and the domino effect it has caused within my life. Through use of defense mechanisms and the inability to communicate, many unnecessary issues could have been avoided.

Due to being an empath, I have a hard time healing while in the presence of my problems with other people. I tend to feel guilty and am unable to differentiate if my feelings are my own or because I am taking on someone else’s feelings.  In order for me to heal, I need to remove myself from the person or issue, long enough to be able to understand the situation as a whole. It is like when two people are in a heated argument and yelling at each other. Someone needs to walk away and cool down before returning to the situation, in order for a reasonable solution to be made. 

The healing process is an individual one. We all have our own traumas and different situations we are going through. My version of healing consisted of isolating myself by stepping away, healing alone, reevaluating what happened, taking accountability for my actions, they take accountability for theirs, decide what I would like to do next and move forward. 

A pattern I realized happens within my relationships is my inability to see my past trauma and the actions I contribute to the problem. I understood I have my faults with the people in my life but if someone wronged me, I immediately go into defensive mood and play the victim. This is a defense mechanism I have done my entire life. One of my biggest fears is losing everyone I love. 

Growing up, I was blamed for a lot of things that weren’t my fault and people still abandoned me. So, when a conflict arises, I play the victim because in my head, this problem is going to be my fault anyway. And then the next person will leave me. When a problem is first brought up, I would black out parts of the conversation and not remember what was said at all. 

I have had people tell me I acted a certain way or I would forget an entire conversation and I would have no memory of it. Blacking out or even trying to make light of the situation, was my way of entering survival mode. Childhood trauma is no joke. Even I didn’t understand the capacity of how badly it can affect a person. I am 27 years old and I am discovering something every day. 

I think we first need to learn to forgive ourselves for the unhealthy habits we formed when we were in survival mode. Every time I was around my one friend, it felt like a new trauma response or event that happened in my life, was discovered. She had a way of unlocking it, forcing me to be open and try to heal from it. At the time, I didn’t understand because I was either blacking out or I wasn’t in the mindset to handle it properly. 

I started listening to podcasts, watching videos and reading books on trauma and childhood related problems. I started being able to pinpoint and acknowledge the issues I was carrying throughout every relationship. I am slowly unlearning these bad habits and trying to replace them with good ones. The first step to change is being able to acknowledge you have trauma and being able to discover in what ways that trauma affects your life currently. 

The knowledge I am gaining daily is what is helping me break down the areas I need to work on. No one wants to hold onto their trauma and allow it to affect their actions and the relationships they have. Although it still makes me uncomfortable, I am now able to talk about my issues and express myself through communication. I didn’t have the ability to communicate or even the emotional functioning to deal with my issues, a couple of years ago. 

I have started to slowly understand whatever is going to happen, is going to happen. If I speak my mind or stand up for myself and someone no longer wants to be in my life, I am okay if they walk away. I know I am enough and I understand, some people don’t deserve to play a role in my life. And that’s okay. 

At the same time, I am grateful for the obstacle’s life has thrown my way. If these big changes didn’t happen, I don’t know if I would have taken the time I needed to heal. When your life starts to fall apart and you lose people who are important to you, it forces you to sit in the chaos of your life and reexamine everything. 

I finally took my childhood trauma, sat it down and opened as many hidden thoughts, feelings and emotions as I could find within the forbidden files within my mind. I worked through each issue, step by step, trying to break down every possible solution and reasoning why it occurred. I changed my perspective and stopped playing the victim.

I am not completely healed from my past but I have begun the process to healing and starting to understand more about myself. Trauma is truly more complicated than I ever thought it could be. It affects so many areas of your life and sometimes we carry it around without even knowing the affect it is having on our lives. In order to move on and heal, we must acknowledge the past and decide to move forward with a new perspective and willingness to develop healthy habits.