This evening, my trauma system was trigged by something that came to my eyes.
In a split second my mind was completely highjacked by negative beliefs and feelings and it pulled me directly into the trauma vortex. It was as if I changed into a little child of six years old, hopelessly reaching out for his mother who wasn’t there for him. This was my reality at that moment. When I was a child, my mother ‘disappeared’ regularly and had to recover in a mental hospital leaving me confused and abandoned.
Because I was this young, the hippocampus (which forms the explicit memory) was still developing. So these incidents weren’t stored in a coherent life story. In stead of that, they’ve been fragmented and frozen in time. For many years they were waiting to be triggered like an undetonated bomb.
A trauma system doesn’t function logically. It doesn’t do truth finding and it preoccupies the perception. In my case, the suspicious mind activated and distorted the reality by creating doomsday scenarios. It’s just like what’s happening with a lot of people in reaction to the corona virus.
My mind created doomsday scenarios. In a split second fear, rejection and abandonment became my reality. I felt just like the little boy who was abandoned by his mother. I even started to behave like this kid who panicked in the moment trying to be calmed and reassured.
Although it took a while this time, I was able to distinguish the past and the present. The first step of differentiation on my way towards integration of these memories.
Recently I’ve found out a word describing this trauma reaction; a preoccupied attachment style. This attachment style was slumbering almost all my life but is showing up at the surface right now, because of the situation I’m in. It’s tough but I’m grateful for that. It invites me to heal it in the light of awareness.
The reason why I’m so openly writing about it, is to conquer the shame which covered it. Nothing to hide anymore, in a way to heal the self-judgmental patterns. As an act of loving kindness and compassion.
Step by step I’m healing myself facing all the unprocessed traumas that come out of the dark caverns of the mind.
I hope it will inspire you to do the same. That you will find the strength to speak up and expressing yourself about your hidden shadows. Not as a sign of weakness but as way to show courage. It will deepening your intimate relationships, I know from my experience. And it wil make the world a little bit better.
And that’s what we need, especially in this period of time.
