Two things I don’t get into much on this blog are {1} my job, and {2} my childhood.
The two have had some cause for melding recently due to some continuing ed I’ve been doing, however, and while some of the things I’ve learned have been a bit “A-hAaaaa!” and “Oh, of COURSE!”, they have also been exhausting to try to process.
Because I have experienced trauma.
And now I work with people who have likewise experienced trauma.
The brain, in its instinctual wisdom, creates work-arounds so that the body may continue to function even when STOP seems indicated. But those work-arounds sometimes become loops that repeat or shortcuts that short-circuit, and the result is that unhealthy behaviors propagate and/or that memory disintegrates. I’ve seen both presentations — in my family, in my clients, and quite frankly, in myself — and while I’ve gained a better scientific understanding of the Why and How of these phenomenon, I am still somewhat stunned at the fact that trauma is so consistently inflicted/induced that the phenomenon exist at all.
It makes me physically ill to think about.
(It also makes me want to disallow propagation of the human species.)
Digging into that physical sensation and trying to work through its causes… It’s exhausting.
And yes, I can intellectualize it. I can grasp the brain science and the vocabulations and the therapeutic approaches and the recommended psychobabble. Which helps, in a detached way, to analyze and understand it.
But also, because it is mental and emotional, because it is ultimately a result of abuse{s} and/or betrayal{s}, because it is rooted in circumstances and events that are outside of one’s own control — often a child’s — I don’t know if I will ever understand it.
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