In Praise of Struggle
What decades of healing from trauma has taught me
Healing from trauma is a long-term relationship to the past; like all relationships, it changes over time. And it’s rarely straightforward. Through struggle, sometimes kicking and screaming, we learn that real change is deeper than becoming the ideal “healed person” previously envisioned.
30 years ago, I thought I’d found the key. Freedom meant confronting what had happened to me as a young child and teenager. With the help of a great male therapist, I owned my emotional truth. I gathered courage to feel the feelings that I had previously channeled into neurotic symptoms. The process was very difficult at times — but in the end, I was able to enjoy life in ways I had never thought possible.
That was Phase One, and it took several years.
Phase Two: I discovered my recovery paths through trial and error. Floundering and confusion taught me that re-experiencing feelings of trauma could be a dead end. The process that had once brought true freedom and joy now made me identify as a perpetually wounded creature. I was re-pathologizing myself as I kept plumbing the depths of what it means to be damaged. Here, I was in fact enabled by a second male therapist, witness to my Black-hole dives, who tried valiantly to reframe my endless self-dissection. The…
