Welcome!
This website is a collection of what I have learned, and continue to learn, about resolving childhood trauma as an adult.
On my journey, I have found the following things to be true:
- To resolve childhood trauma, I don't need to be able to remember the trauma - or even remember my childhood.
I do remember that stuff, but I have met plenty of people, who don't, and they are still able to resolve their unresolved trauma. - In the process of resolving childhood trauma, I also end up healing generational trauma - personal and collective trauma that has been passed down through generations genetically or behaviorally in my family and in my culture.
- Having support on this journey is essential. I can only do so much on my own.
I am very self-reliant and can do quite a lot on my own, but self-reliance only goes so far. It has its limits.
Receiving guidance from a person with trauma integration experience has been very helpful and, at times, absolutely necessary.
My mentor had over 14 years of personal trauma healing experience when we started working together and had mentored many others before me. - Those of us with addictions, physical health conditions, or mental health conditions may need an expert in that condition to provide additional support and guidance on our trauma healing journey.
What Is Trauma?
I have heard many definitions and explanations of what trauma is.
What it all boils down to is that trauma is a reaction - an emotional upset.
It is a response to an overwhelming distressing event.
(It is not the distressing event, itself.)
If someone is wondering if they had any trauma in their childhood, they can ask themselves,
"Did I ever feel upset and overwhelmed about something when I was growing up?
Did I ever experience an overwhelming distressing event during my childhood?"
I put distressing events into 3 main categories
(The first two come from Gabor Mate. I added the third.)
- Something bad happened that should not have
- Something good did not happen that should have
- Something bad happened that could be seen as a normal part of life
(like falling off a bicycle or getting stung by a bee)
All humans experience trauma - it is just a matter of whether it gets fully resolved or not.
ALONE
What prevents trauma from getting resolved?
Many experts agree that being ALONE with what happened is why our trauma did not get resolved.
Gabor Mate has said that what creates trauma is not the traumatic event itself, but being ALONE with it.
According to Lori Galperin, what really makes trauma "Trauma" is the reaction of the environment
to an injurious experience that happened to us [at any age].
If the reaction of people in our environment ameliorates the effects of what happened,
we can move through it and move on.
When their reaction exacerbates the problem or there is complete silence,
then we are left to handle what happened ALONE.
Acccording to Teal Swan, as children, we could not find resolution [for our trauma]
because we were left to handle what happened ALONE,
and we were not equipped to handle it.
What is needed to heal trauma is to resolve it.
So, the crucial factor for children is whether or not they have support from a healthy adult
to deal with and process the overwhelming distressing event.
Receiving adequate support can drastically change a child's reaction.
It can help them make some kind of sense of what happened and feel safe again.
There are a wide variety of reasons why adults are not available to support a child.
They are either too disconnected or shut down due to their own unresolved childhood or other trauma;
or there is some form of environmental or internal stress or other distraction present -
either on an ongoing basis or temporarily.