Healing the Past, part Two

Someone told me early on at a support group that
"We are the cause of all our own pain."
This person was aware that there were survivors of
childhood trauma in this group. He reiterated his point
when I dared mention that children do not choose to draw
abuse into their lives.

I was enraged and resentful and hurt, and all the past
traumas came bubbling back up, relived once more. It
is never the place of another human being to assess or
dismiss our pain. We are not here to pass judgment on
one another in any respect. Perhaps he was dealing with
issues of his own in the only way he knew how, or perhaps
he was callous and insensitive.

The point is; I don't know his motives, and I can't be
concerned about his motives. The unfortunate thing is
that I allowed myself to become so upset by this one
statement that I stopped going to group for months. I
gave up something beneficial to me (here's a reoccurring
theme!) because of one isolated incident. I might could
have been of use to another person during that wasted
time, or I might have gotten support from others present.
But this is something we learned to do early on; give up,
isolate, shut down.

As defenseless children, we had no other options available
to us. One of the most difficult things for 'other people' to
understand is why people 'like us' stay stuck in the past,
frozen in a particular set of skills (or lack thereof.)
"Why can't you just get over it?"

Trauma brings forth such violent emotional charges that
it literally imprints actions and emotions onto our brain,
our body, and our psyche. Like an afterimage on a TV
screen or computer monitor after an image has been
maintained for so long. It lingers with us. The incidents
was so powerful that it superimposes itself on us. For
those who suffer continuous, repetitious abuse, it is
especially fused within us.

Even those who suppress the emotional response into the
subconscious mind (because of inability to fathom or cope in
our innocent state) are still affected at least internally by such
horrors.

We can suppress an external response, but the ill
effects, the schizoid tendencies, the obsessive patterns,
the self-destructive behaviors, the personality extremes
(of being a smart-ass, an abuser, emotionally unavailable,
a rager, a caretaker, a clown, a perfectionist, a loner) all
eventually come out.

The question is whether or not we can identify the correlation
between the emerging issues and the original underlying problems
that sparked them. Until we recognize that one thing is related
to the other, truly overcoming our problems can be difficult.
If we don't comprehend why we think the wrong things, why
certain situations cause fear, why some people make us uneasy...
it may be hard to correct the matter.

This is not a call to just start digging deep into old hurts and
channeling all that pain in an unsupervised, unsafe manner;
there is much in the way of proper preparation and healthy
planning to exploring these issues. But the willingness to begin
the journey can be a task in itself. So many years (and decades
even) of covering up pain, hiding aspects of ourselves, playing a
role for others, avoiding our feelings; these take time, effort,
and ease to overcome.