trauma sucks. don't sell your house.

When something traumatic happens to you, do you process it, work through it and release it? Do you go through the stages of grief and then, one day, you’re all better?

In the oddest of ways, my work as a CASA (court appointed special advocate) has prepared me for doula-hood (it’s a word) more than I could’ve ever imagined. I had no idea when going through the CASA certification process that the education on trauma would come in handy in this life, as a doula. But here I am, talking about ACE’s (adverse childhood experiences), birth trauma and sexual trauma, and surprising person after person when I explain that trauma never goes away. So I thought maybe this would be good information to share to more people at once.

That may sound daunting for those of you who are survivors of “big T” traumas. And to those of you still under the fog of processing, this may be too heavy to dig into right now. Feel free to come back to this if/when you are ready.

But for those of you who have endured traumas and maybe even done the hard work of processing through, this might seem kind of backwards. “What do you mean trauma never goes away? I feel fine these days.” “I just ‘graduated’ counseling, I understand what happened to me and am able to live my life without constantly thinking about it, I think it already has gone away.” <— those are two actual things I’ve heard before, and boy do I wish it were that easy.

Here’s the thing. Your traumas are a part of you. Your experiences—good, bad and ugly—shape how you view the world. Example: Let’s say A is a female-identifying salesperson with a passion for art history and a best friend, and one day, her best friend dies suddenly. Now, not only did A go from being someone with a best friend to being someone without a best friend, but now she’s a female identifying salesperson with a passion for art history without a best friend who has come to see death in a very specific and intimate way. So when A gets a new job and has to move cities, you think she takes her job and her hobbies with her, but leaves behind her relationship with death? No way. Whether she knows it or not, this relationship packed its things and hopped on the moving truck in a box labeled “trauma.” But don’t worry, it stuck itself in the back near the keepsakes and holiday decorations.

What I’m saying is that you re-process the traumas you’ve endured at every major intersection of your life, asking yourself how your identity and worldview fit in to whatever this new reality is; a new job, milestone birthday, the birth of a child, or even additional trauma.

The good news is this doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily feel beat down by your stuff all your life. You will be pushed to continue to do the hard work, to process your emotions, identify your triggers and set healthy boundaries with those around you. It will be helpful if you can do all that with as much compassion as possible for what will sometimes be terrible, albeit well intentioned gestures from people in your life. But there will also be times where your trauma box will start making a racket in the attic, asking for some attention. You can absolutely ignore it if you’d like. Just tell yourself that clearly your house is haunted and move somewhere else; after all, packing and unpacking all over again makes for a great distraction. Or, you can pull the box down into a peace-filled room in your house. You can open it up, ask what it’s hoping to teach you and listen to what it has to say. Generally speaking, the things that hurt us can be the things that give us superpowers, so it might be getting ready to teach you something really great.

But you should definitely still call your therapist because now you’re talking to moving boxes.