Overcoming Trauma

I went to dinner recently with one of my best friends.  He got a call when we were at dinner and the call went long.  So I got up and walked around, made a few phone calls myself and returned.  He was still on the phone.  Eventually he moved out to the parking lot when I was walking around.  I just kept circling the parking lot, walking past shops and stores, waiting for the perpetual call to end.  Since we were in a strange city and I was at the mercy of his transportation, I did not seem to have anywhere to go on my own accord.  I was pretty agitated because I thought it was discourteous.  I said my piece and left it at that.

A few days later I was meeting him at a location in another strange city where I knew no one.  I was still in the parking lot when he went into the building.  I had to deal with some issues in my car, and when I went into the (strange and unfamiliar) building, he wasn’t there.  I cannot explain the rage I felt in that moment.  I had no idea where he was and he didn’t answer his phone when I called him.

Minutes later when he resurfaced, I was furious.  I heard myself yell at him in the elevator, “Stop leaving me alone in parking lots!”  I could tell my rage was disproportionate to the event, but couldn’t figure out why.  I asked God why I was so mad.  An image flashed in my mind’s eye of my sister and me sitting in a pickup in the middle of a pasture.

It was a flashback to when I think I was maybe five or six, and she was six or seven.  My parents were farmers and we had gone to this pasture to do something for farm work.  My mom had told us to sit in the truck and wait for her to return.   It was fine at first, as we busied ourselves with playing.  As time progressed we bickered and picked at each other.  Then as more time progressed we panicked.  We were both sure she wasn’t coming back, and we both began sobbing hysterically.  Shortly after our hysteria hit, our mom showed up and was confused and annoyed with our emotional outburst.

As young as we were, we didn’t realize what prompted it.  We had been adopted at ages four and five, and we had been left by our biological mom at ages two and three.  We didn’t have that memory consciously, but clearly we had it subconsciously and it caused us great angst a few years later when what felt like a similar scenario arose.

So as recent as in this last year, being left in a strange city where I knew no one triggered some of that same anxiety.  How odd that forty years later I could still be triggered, albeit to a lesser degree.  When I saw the flashback to my sister and I in the pickup crying hysterically, afraid we had been abandoned by our second mom, I was able to understand my current anger and frustration and move on without it causing more trouble. 

What if I had not had the insight from God on why I was so upset?  I’m sure I would’ve railed on my best friend, caused a rift in our friendship and who knows what other fallout may have occurred.    

Trauma rewires the brain

The human mind is complex.  Trauma rewires your brain.  The younger you are at the time of trauma, the more difficult it is to discern quickly when it is causing a reaction.  If you don’t have the conscious memory of the traumatic event, and you don’t have an awareness, it’s improbable you will ascertain its impact years later in varying situations. 

I’ve spent most of my life healing from various traumas and learning how to walk in health.  Because of how childhood trauma wired me, I’m particularly careful who I let into my inner circle.  I can count those I’ve let in on one hand.  More on that later…

Another more recent event expounds on this.   I had traveled with a best friend to a strange city.  While there an emergency arose for “Mary”.  Mary had to fly out of the city to the emergency, leaving me alone in the strange city for a day.  She would return late the next night.  She asked if I’d be okay at the hotel without a car for a day and a half.  I assured her I would.  I’m a researcher and writer, so being alone is not a problem.  I had her take me to grab some lunch before she left, knowing I’d be limited on meal options over the next 32 hours or so.  She returned a bit later than we expected and I was famished.  Because it was almost eleven, not many places were open and I opted to just go to bed after driving to try to find food.

Mary left the next day for some meetings that took way longer than expected.  This was day three.  As the day progressed and night fell, I could tell my psyche was struggling but I didn’t know why.  I was hungry.  It was the end of the third day and I still hadn’t had a meal since the original lunch.  I finally opted to go to bed, praying the whole time trying to figure out why I was so bothered.

Mary offered to take me to get food when she returned from her meetings, but again, it was too late for any real food places to be open.  I wasn’t mad at Mary, but I was struggling and didn’t understand why.  I was tearful and wanted to cry the rest of the night.  I prayed a lot, asking God why I was so troubled, but finally opted to go to bed in hopes of waking to a new day. 

When I awoke on day four, I was indifferent.  I determined I would do what I had to do to get a meal and not rely upon Mary (she had the only mode of transportation).  I sought the Lord that morning about why I was so bothered.  I wondered if it was from some of the heavy stuff I was researching and maybe it had settled in more deeply than I realized.  Then I saw an image flash across my mind’s eye.  It was a kitchen stool sitting along a wall.

Then I saw my childhood home and the kitchen dining room area.  The kitchen stool sat along the kitchen wall, and the long table stretched in the adjoining dining area.  One of my punishments in my childhood was sitting on that stool.  For hours.  Often it would be as the family sat and had a meal and I did without.

Now I’m going to get into some details that will take some time, but it’s necessary to help understand the complexities of the human mind and the rewiring trauma does. 

When I was doing deliverance work for myself, I worked with a couple people who specialized in deliverance and intercession.   Because I was adopted, there’s not a lot I know about my birth mother other than what I’ve been able to piece together over time from some interviews and some court records.

During one of my deliverance sessions, one of my intercessors saw me as a little girl, maybe one or two, and I was beside a large tree looking up at the apple hanging down, trying to stretch out my hand to get one but couldn’t reach.  There was a ladder, but the first rung was too high for me to reach.  And she got the scripture, Psalm 145:15:  “The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due time.”

As we prayed the intercessors got that my nutritional needs during early childhood were amiss.  My biological mom had alcohol, drug and sex addictions.  She smoked when she was pregnant with me.  She was in poverty and food was hit and miss in the home (from the state child welfare records).  When we got adopted a few years later, my new mom’s methods of discipline included withholding food.

So there was an early childhood trauma of malnourishment, and it was compounded by a later action of withholding food, punishment from food.  The first trauma rewired the brain, and the second reinforced it.  It’s taken me a lot of years to manage some eating dysfunctions I have (mostly binging, sometimes hoarding food). 

How are these traumas healed?  How are they overcome?

Trauma rewires the brain.  The solution and healing to the trauma is found in God.  The eyes of all look to You and You give them their food in due time.  This is the truth.  God provides even when man fails.

The events of the four days without a meal thing (I had snacks, it’s not like I was starving) created phantom pains for me, reminiscent of earlier traumas.  I’m healed.  I don’t struggle with eating disorders and unhealthy thought patterns about food anymore.  And yet, forty years later, a situation had just enough similarity to trigger a phantom pain or fear. 

Had it not been for the insight I received when I petitioned the Lord for why I was struggling (the flashback of the kitchen stool), I would not have had the awareness that this was just trauma trying to reinsert itself in my thinking and create additional drama in my life.  As soon as I saw the kitchen stool I had an immediate awareness that this was a false affliction. 

What I’m trying to do is two-fold:  address trauma triggers and address solutions. 

Because of how trauma rewires the brain, in future situations that rewiring causes dramatic reactions that otherwise would not be there.  Something gets rewired to assess situations through a trauma filter, and in the future, similar situations can trigger the trauma responses.

The solution is Christ, of course.  But that’s such a pat answer to such a complex condition.  Let’s look at it like this….

Give yourself some grace when you feel triggered.  Try not to react in dramatic measure.  When you feel yourself reacting disproportionately to the circumstances pull back and breathe in deeply.  Recognize something is amiss and give yourself time to work through it.  Don’t berate yourself if your immediate reaction is inappropriate.  It probably will be, because trauma causes that.  Just try to catch it quicker the next time.  You’ll find as time goes by the triggers will come fewer and further between.  Again, give yourself grace.

Give others in the situation grace, understanding they don’t perceive the current situation through a trauma filter.   My friends couldn’t possibly know I was having an uncontrolled reaction based on a trauma stimulus.  Heck, it took me awhile to figure it out.  Give them grace, and don’t feel like you need to explain yourself.  Trauma and trauma responses are vulnerability issues.  I hate being vulnerable to anyone, and I try to keep these things completely between me and God.  Sometimes, however, if it’s someone I love and trust deeply, I will bring them into my trauma circle for a moment.

About ten years ago I was doing dishes and looked out the window and saw the traffic police pull up to radar for a school zone.  I was immediately enraged, like I went from do-ta-do to ARGHH in a split second.  The contempt I had for those cops was off the charts.  After a few minutes I asked God, “Why do I feel like this?  They’re just doing their job!”  He responded, “Because police took you away from your mom when you were two.  You’ve hated police ever since.”

Know this:  I do not have a conscious memory of police taking me away.  I was too young to remember or I repressed it.  But the trauma trigger for me still existed.  I asked God what to do.  He told me to forgive the policeman who took me away, and to forgive police in general.  I did.  That anger left that day and has not returned.  Sometimes I have phantom twinges trying to pull me back into that anger, but I recall the truth (I have forgiven them and they are just doing their job) and I choose to walk in that truth instead.

This leads me back to the Christ answer.  Christ has the answer for each of your traumas.  He knows what was rewired.  He knows what triggers you and why.  Learn to ask Him.  He can and will heal it.  I can already hear some of you, “But I don’t hear God like you do.”  I know.  I know.  It’s not that you don’t hear Him; it’s that you haven’t recognized the way He speaks to you.

Sometimes He answers with a thought in my head, sometimes with a memory recall, sometimes with an image (like the kitchen stool, or the pickup in the empty pasture), and sometimes it takes a few days.  But if you seek Him, you will find Him.  Learn to hear.  Learn to respond.  The more you respond, the easier it becomes to hear.  You’ll eventually stop doubting and start trusting. 

Trauma can be healed.  Trauma can be overcome.  For me, God has been the surest way to do so.