Gratitude

I’ve been seeing a trauma therapist for years now.  It started when I went to my Bishop and confessed that I hated men.  Not only that, I hated God because guess what…He’s a man.  And men betray me.  That's what they do.  My Bishop reached into his desk, pulled out a card, and said “I think you should go see her”. 

And so began an education in emotions.

I’ve come to recognize the emotions behind my trauma.   Fear, Terror, Horror, Anger, Rage, Betrayal, Grief, just to name a few.  I plan to explore some of those emotions here.  Maybe you will recognize some of them too. 

For those of you who haven’t been to a trauma therapist here’s how it works.  When you are threatened you have two normal reactions.  Flight or fight.  Except sometimes you freeze.  You can’t do what’s normal for various reasons – you are too small, too weak, too afraid.   When you freeze that energy gets trapped and it stays under this tight lid.  Except over time it builds up until it just can’t be contained anymore and some of it leaks out and chaos ensues (anger, addiction, depression, isolation, all that nasty stuff). 

So with the therapist you let the lid off and imagine yourself running or fighting (depending on what your body wants to do-and there are signs) and you are able to release that pent up energy and the chaos in your life goes away temporarily.  Of course there is more frozen energy buried that will work its way back up to the surface so you have to do this again.  Gradually the time between episodes increases until maybe this is a bi-annual or annual exercise. 

Everyone has a different way of imagining it.  Maybe you punch something.  Maybe you tear something.  It just has to have energy and adrenaline behind it.  At times I’ve done different things.  I’ve imagined ripping phone books in half.  I’ve imagined scoring tile (I used to do this for my dad when he set tile.  It involves a firm grip and just the right angle as you tighten all forearm muscles and pull backwards).  At other times I imagined Hugh Jackman punching the air like he does at the end of that movie Real Steel.   There’s a certain joy in it.  I guess at that time I needed to feel joy in my ability to fight. There was the raging fight too where I was the Incredible Hulk just flexing all of my muscles and roaring.  I didn’t even need to punch to scare my enemies off.   And sometimes it just needed to reflect the helplessness of a child.  The kind where you lay on the floor and flail about. 

Sometimes though I needed to run.  Or bicycle.  Again you need the energy and the adrenaline.  And somehow it had to involve my legs.  I remember sometime between kindergarten and 3^rd grade I thought I could race my dad home from the end of our street.  I pedaled sooooo hard.  Unfortunately I forgot to stop and ran into the brick wall of our neighbor’s house--but I can still recall the adrenaline.   

Sometimes though I can’t run.  In despair I told my therapist I couldn’t run and she asked “can you imagine anyone else running?”  I imagined my Dad because when I wanted to run faster as a kid I heard that if you raced against someone faster than you it would make you faster.  So my dad went out to the field by our school and jogged along beside me as I ran my heart out.  Because that’s what dad’s do.   And in this instance after I watched him run for a little bit in my imagination I found I could run too. 

Then there was the time that I knew I needed to run and this time instead of running blindly to nowhere I saw myself running to the Savior for comfort and protection.   Remember the day the Bishop pulled that card out of his desk?  I’m so grateful he did.