Trauma is a Small Word
Trauma…
Trauma is a small word, insignificant for many, yet it carries a volcano inside. You wouldn’t know until you start shivering with the response. Your eyes become a water fall, not of plain fresh water, but of ocean; salty, thrashing, hot, as if getting out with a sheer force that can burn anything. Your hands are trembling, your lips silent, you lose your physical strength; unable to move, unable to think. That’s how significant the word can be; ‘trauma’.
It comes easily, uninvited, following small triggers. It doesn’t go back that easy. Once it’s there, it’s there.
You wouldn’t know it’s coming. You are in your pajamas, watching your favorite movie, it’s raining outside. You feel calm..
You are calm, until that perturbation.
It’s a knock on the door and there lies a small parcel, or your phone starts screaming; your trigger is calling, or a group chat, or just a news headline.
Something is shaking inside your brain.
We all think it isn’t a big deal, it’s not going to be that traumatic.
Oh but it is.
It is coming with even greater intensity. Did you know? Every trauma trigger makes your pain stronger? We lose a little more of patience with every attack. We keep thinking, why didn’t we see it coming? Why is it affecting you again? Bringing all those memories back.
The truth is that pain was there, it’s always been there; hiding in a corner, sleeping under the pile of books.
But there were red flags.
There are always red flags that we can’t help but ignore. Your brain doesn’t seem to acknowledge them, it’s hard, it’s painful, it’s cynical. You can see when someone who caused you pain, is making its way back to you for their personal gains. To do the same thing all over again. You can feel it, you just tell yourself it’s not possible.
Oh but it is..
You see that’s the thing about narcissists (if you are dealing with one), they don’t care about what had happened before. They don’t take it personal, they don’t think it was wrong.
For them, world is still the same. They can come back anytime to ask for what they need.
At least this is what I observed from my personal experience. Someone who tried to harass me, contacted me on LinkedIn after a year for a referral they needed.
You would think, what an audacity, right?
I thought the same. How that person even imagined I would help them? Probably because they think the world owes them? Or because they still think of the victims as weak?
Have you ever wondered why your ex suddenly has changed and started showing you care, knocking doors and begging you to let them back? But once you allow them in, they are back to what they are, what they always have been.
Another narcissistic pattern, they will patch up things if they need something, or if their goal was incomplete.
Sometimes we can’t identify the red flags, they are too easy to notice, or too complex to understand.
We don’t understand until we are trapped in the same trauma again.
That’s when we start predicting, that’s when we start noticing, that’s when we start making connections and patterns until we figure it all out. And when we do, we become stronger.
We remember everything, we will draw the boundaries, build the walls, shut the windows, block every entrance, every voice, every whisper until it is quiet and calm again.
Trauma is a small word, but it’s not going to happen again. It’s not getting me this time.
Trauma is a small word, but it carries huge memories, we won’t forget this time.
Trauma is a small word, it makes you physically weak but your survival instinct is wild, like a volcano that would take over everything.
Trauma is a small word, but it is insignificant because you are STRONGER now, you can fight it.
