Trauma and triggers

I write a good bit about trauma and how it affects the body, mind, and spirit. Maybe you don’t want or need to hear about it. If so, feel free to click away. But I have felt a distinct calling from God to share parts of my story, hoping they will help someone who is also suffering in silence.

There is a huge need, especially in conservative Christian circles, to remove the stigma and shame of abuse, trauma, and therapy. This topic is not something I ever thought about, even though I suffered abuse decades ago.

You see, like a “good Christian girl,” I kept it to myself. I stuffed it down inside so deeply that I was able to appear functionally “normal.” I never talked about it, even with those closest to me. I learned to look and act like nothing was wrong and life was perfect.

Then I was in a serious car accident four years ago and the floodgates opened. When living with the symptoms became more painful than confronting the abuse, I started dealing with it in therapy.

It has been harder than anything I’ve ever done. It has also been rewarding, but the road to healing is not linear, as I said in a recent Instagram post. It reminds me of the old cartoons where two characters were fighting and it was depicted as a tornado. Then every so often an arm would reach out and pull something or someone else into the fight. This is exactly what happens in therapy: you think you're dealing with one thing, but then your brain pulls something that seems unrelated into the current conversation.

I never know when something will trigger a reaction. I never know what the trigger will be. Writing about these events has been helpful in my healing, and if you are going through a similar struggle, I want you to know you are not alone. What you are experiencing is normal. It does not mean you are weak or deficient or defective in some way. Being triggered after trauma is 100% normal. It's your brain making connections that you are unaware of.

So just in case you wanted a glimpse into one of these events, here’s a recent example. I woke up and wrote this on my phone the morning after it happened.

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There will come a time in your healing journey when you feel like you’re done with therapy. Tired of going. Sick of investing all that time and money and energy. Oh, the mental energy required! You convince yourself you’ve processed everything there is to process. You’re good to go. All better.

Then one day some seemingly insignificant thing will happen and you will find yourself sobbing and wondering what on earth just happened. Your husband will love you through it and then after he is asleep you will still be lying there awake, wondering if you will ever not be broken.

You will beg God to fix it, take it away, do something, anything. You will feel hopeless. You will have no answers.

You will do a few eye movements you learned in EMDR therapy to try to calm your racing mind, and then turn over and try to sleep. Twenty minutes later the answer will pop you wide awake and you will suddenly understand why, for the last 40 years, if anyone in the family wanted to borrow your car you felt uneasy, a little bothered, backed into a corner. I mean, it’s just a car, right? You’re not a selfish person. You’re giving and generous, so why do you always feel like this when someone needs to drive your car?

And in that moment you will know.

It’s because you didn’t have a car when you needed one most. You couldn’t get away. You couldn’t escape. You were stuck and helpless.

Friend—self—you need to know this: it is not your fault and it’s not a character flaw. It is your brain trying to keep you safe. That’s what brains are supposed to do! They develop coping mechanisms when we are threatened or unsafe so they can prevent harm in the future. Your brain equates your car with safety. It made that connection all by itself and isn't that the most amazing thing?

Your brain is doing what it was designed by God to do. You are not broken. You are perfectly whole. You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

You may never be able to “let go” of your car. That ability was stolen from you. There may always be a little part of you that is looking for an escape route, a way out.

It’s okay to grieve what you lost. Go ahead and cry, be angry, mourn. Lament.

But remember what King David did after every lament? He worshipped.

“Mine enemies would daily swallow me up … What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” (Psalm 56:2–3)

“Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.” (Psalm 55:17)

“… in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.” (Psalm 57:1)

“When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path." (Psalm 142:3)

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1)

Worship does not eliminate the triggers, but when your anxiety is high because of them, it helps to remember we have the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, right there inside us. Sometimes I pray these psalms and pat my heart as a reminder that he is right there.