Returning to Life in 2021: A Path Back for the Traumatized
How Revisiting Post-Traumatic Stress Can Spur Post-Traumatic Growth
In 2020 and 2021, many of us have had time to think. For some, this time has led to a realization: We’re lost.
We once had a soul — a purpose, an identity — but somewhere along the way, this coherence shattered. The path out of the foggy forest of uncertainty became obscured, covered with the dead leaves of the past, tangled over with variegated thorns that we falsely believe block our way.
The inability to see a path quickly leads to the false assumption that there is no path. But there is a path. Finding it will take work, but it will be worthwhile work. For, as Seneca knew, if you don’t know to which port you’re sailing, no wind is favorable. Human beings need direction.
If the above describes you, you may be a victim of trauma. If so, this article is for you — a precious soul with infinite dignity that forgot its dignity because of a world that battered it, belittled it, whispered to it the horrible lie that its — your — life is unworthy, its deepest goals and highest ideals hopelessly naive.
In my experience, traumatized souls are kind souls. Because of their extraordinary kindness in a (too often) extraordinarily unkind society, they sometimes assume that everyone else is as empathetic as they are. When they eventually confront the inhumanity of much of humanity, they become confused, lost, and withdrawn. Confronted with the tragedy of human existence, they recoil, turtle-like, into a shell. Coaxing them back into the world — encouraging them to engage in and with reality once more — is a hard but not impossible task.
The past is past. It’s time to come out.
You see, the world is not wholly bad. There are demons, but there are also angels; there are some who will spit on you and degrade you and laugh at you; there are others who will lift you, who have suffered like you have suffered, who have felt just as out of place and uncertain as you might still feel.
Yes, as you encountered during your traumatic experience, some people will use you. Those who have been used by others — treated like a tool instead of a human, like lemons to be squeezed dry and trashed instead of cherished and loved — are those most in need of techniques to transcend their trauma. Your user or abuser — whether one person or a group of them — may have caused you to forget about your intrinsic human dignity, but the dignity remains. It is imperishable. And, if you dig within yourself, you can rediscover it.
In short, your suffering need not make you weaker. You can use it as fuel. The obstacle can become the way.
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” — Khalil Gibran
Buddhism’s directions out of the forest of uncertainty involve an eightfold path. My guide out — Shammasism (hah) — involves only two (and was directly inspired by my reading of Hope Edelman’s excellent The Aftergrief):
(1) Change your story. As Robert Frost knew, the best way out is through. And as Carl Jung knew, if you fail to make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. The path to pleasure involves pain. Deep pain. You might wish it were otherwise, but such a wish denies the nature of reality. For “what is to give light must endure burning.”
So you must revisit the past trauma, and — in doing so — “make the unconscious, conscious.” You may now have a story in mind where you and only you are to blame for whatever happened in your past, but that’s not true. You must revisit your story — with all its pain — in order to find the real story, the messy, complicated, human one. This is a story where, yes, you deserve some blame — but others do too. You are mistreating yourself now because you were mistreated; the first step to ending the self-inflicted harm is recognizing that you are not solely to blame.
(2) Re-discover your soul. Existence is tough. The only way to weather life’s storms is to forge an identity solid enough to withstand its ebbs and flows. You may feel like you were a different person before you were traumatized,that the current “you” is profoundly different. You might feel like you’ll never be your “true self” again. You might feel broken — permanently. That’s not true. After figuring out how you broke on the first path out of the forest — after grappling with not only who you are but what you are — you can begin adventuring down the second (much sunnier) path. You can find your purpose, your telos, your reason for living. You can find your why.
That’s good news. Once you have a “why,” you’ll be able to bear almost any how.
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” — Jesus of Nazareth, The Gospel of Thomas
More Detailed Directions Out of the Forest
The First Path: Changing your Story by Revisiting your Past
Traumatized souls have forgotten who they are. To rediscover “who you are,” you must first know “what you are.”
What you are is a meaning-making creature — a human being. Stories are essential to how our species creates meaning. For this reason, your path out of trauma will not involve an elixir that’ll make everything better. Nor will a Dumbledore-like shaman guide you to fullness.
No, Dumbledore could only help Harry Potter. Yoda could only help Luke. Gandalf could only help Frodo. You, dear reader — yes, you! — must enter the belly of the whale. Your life story is your story — not mine, not your priest’s, not your psychologist’s, not your parent’s, and certainly not society’s. You’re the hero. You’ve been given the ring, and you’re the one who’s going to have to lug it over to Mount Doom.
This means that you will have to suffer (again). That’s not bad. For it is only by processing the suffering — not repressing it — that you can turn post-traumatic stress into post-traumatic growth. To echo my inner nerd, Gandalf the Grey suffered fairly intensely when he battled the Balrog; but as a result of that suffering, he became Gandalf the White — i.e., an absolute and utter boss (literally, the boss of all the other wizards…).
You have an absolute and utter boss within you, too. But, like Gandalf, you’re going to have to fight a (hopefully figurative) Balrog before you can come to your senses — tossing out your old story — and discover a narrative that serves you.
The Second Path: Rediscovering your Soul
Here’s how to fight the Balrog and rediscover that sense of identity that I’m telling you is so important for (1) recovering from trauma, specifically, and (2) living a full life, generally. You won’t need a sword. You will need a pen and paper.
Here’s what to do. (Hope Edelman describes this process much better than I do in The Aftergrief.) Take that sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. That line represents the traumatic event or events — the fight with the Balrog — that separates your former self from your future self. For many of you, that line will simply represent 2020.
On the left-hand side of the paper, I want you to write traits describing yourself — negative and positive. Perhaps before suffering you were kinder; more likely, you were less empathic and more narcissistic.
On the right-hand side, do the same thing. Perhaps negative qualities will pop up, first. So list those things (many will be coping mechanisms) straight away: alcoholism, depression, laziness, whatever, just get it all out. But make sure you list the good qualities that your encounter with the Balrog — your suffering — has also created: A stronger sense of empathy; a truer understanding of reality; and so on.
Now, when you look at those two halves of paper, you might think that “pre-Balrog you” and “post-Balrog you” are completely different people. Instead of post-traumatic growth capable of transforming you from Gandalf the Grey into Gandalf the White, you might suspect your fight with the Balrog will forever mire you in a fiery pit of despair — that you’ll never leave the mines of Moria.
My friend, you are completely wrong. Here’s how to defeat the Balrog:
- Circle the traits that you had both before and after the traumatic event.
- On a new piece of paper, list those traits. Those are fundamental parts of who you are. They define your very being. They are, in short, aspects of your true self — your soul.
- Look over those traits. What do they say about your purpose? About your telos, your why, your reason for living? Jot down what comes to mind.
The final step? Head back to the Shire. Relax. Recuperate. Reflect. Because there are more journeys in your future.
Michael Elias Shammas is a lawyer, writer, and (hopeful) academic. Feel free to follow him on Twitter or to read his preliminary scholarship.
