Trauma, traumatic experiences, and traumatic injuries are all covered quite at length in other places. That’s not what this entry is about. This entry is about those moments, those points in time, that completely change your behavior forever after. So yes, it’s still about trauma, but differently.
I feel like all too often, “trauma” is used either too much or too little, either to only describe the Big Events that shape an entire community in one go, or to describe every little thing that causes an inconvenience. I propose an alternate, much simpler definition. A trauma is anything that, from that moment on, causes you to think, act, or behave in a different way. There is the Before, and there is the After.
Not wanting to drive on the road where you were in a car accident. Avoiding being alone on certain corners. Stopping a favorite hobby on a dime. Avoiding putting something away a certain way, because of the memory of the last time you did it like that. Not wanting to leave someone alone, because of what happened the last time you did that. In other words, changing a habit in an instant based solely on one experience. Those are the true traumas.
And no, I’m not here to give an easy fix, explain how to move past them, or expound on how to go back to who you were before. It’s possible you can’t, and that the new you is here to stay. You were Before, but now you are After. You may need to grieve, or have compassion for yourself, or even forgive yourself.
But I *can* tell you that there are people who are here, who care, and who have compassion for those things. There are people who recognize that the After is a place everyone ends up, and so it’s important for us to help those that are still freshly in this space, blinking in the blinding light.
These experiences are valid, and they matter.
You are valid, and you matter.
~selah
