Communication: A Tool to Break Down Trauma Barriers

In this blog, I’m going to address talking as a means of communicating. Talking to each other or voicing our feelings is a skill that we often ignore or do not do it efficiently. It can be hard as a survivor and sometimes impossible to communicate how we feel about something, and we push it away. We don’t always know how we feel, but we sure as hell (pardon my language) feel it in our bodies because our bodies absorb everything. Then it manifests in headaches, stomach upsets, tension, etc. The problem is that those feelings that are pushed aside will never go away completely, and they have a way of showing up when you least expect them to. If we ignore the need to communicate how we feel, those feelings can become cooped up inside our bodies just like a pressure cooker uses pressure from steam to cook food. Eventually, we need to let that “pressure” out before we burst and our feelings become an embarrassing “oil spill” of emotions wherever we happen to be. (Trust me, it always happens in the worst possible place!) Sometimes, we just need to let the “pressure out.”

I’m a survivor, and even after years of therapy, I still have days when I am triggered. Triggers are everywhere and can pop up when we least expect it and cause havoc in our lives. When this happens, the last thing we want to do is to talk about it. (I know, right?) Keeping complicated feelings inside is the worst thing we can do, but if you are a survivor, this is what we learned as children. Keeping our own business to ourselves because nobody listens anyway, right? That is the way I saw my world as a child, and I know many survivors feel the same. It is extremely hard to get out of that learned behavior. Everything is almost certainly NOT FINE all the time, and people should hear it. Our voices do matter. You matter! But if we do not speak up and communicate those feelings, people will never know or understand how we truly feel. People, in general, are desensitized by triggering events because they happen all the time. The news is riddled with bad events, people having arguments, and general conflict. This has become normal. It should not be normal that our wonderful world has so much conflict, causing billions of people to live in fear and anxiety. Yet, here we are, and survivors often get lost in the maelstrom as we move through life. We cannot change the whole world, but we can start small and change our immediate world, meaning our surroundings and the people we see every day, by speaking up. All those little stressors of every day that cause us to be triggered are like little darts being shot at us from all directions. One or two darts don’t hurt that much, but more than that, and they sure start to hurt more, right?

How do you break the habit of a lifetime and tell people how you feel? (You ask me) Well, it is not easy to do, and my advice is to practice. Use the bathroom mirror once you have calmed down from your silent meltdown and say to yourself: “I matter, and my voice matters.” Then, practice what you are going to say to the person who triggered you. Share something small about yourself that you might not be certain that you want to share, and see what happens. I think you will be surprised at the reaction that you get.

I will give you an example of how I shared something about myself that I didn’t feel comfortable sharing, but I’m now happy that I did. Two of my colleagues were always bickering about stuff, and sometimes, they would use colorful language. The way they spoke to each other upset me, so I told them (separately). “I really don’t like the way you speak to XXXXXXXXXX; it upsets me.” Both had no idea how I felt, and the two of them made peace (at least when I’m around!)

On another occasion, I had to speak up and tell another mom that I did not like the words she used to speak to her son at practice and that it was upsetting to me and my kids. It made that mom think about her words and she is now much kinder (and calmer) to her son and my ears!

A third example is when I tell people that “I am allergic to cream.” This is not entirely true but as close to the truth as I am comfortable to share. I cannot eat cream without feeling physically sick to my stomach because of what happened to me as a child. I do not share those details because it is too personal but by sharing that “I’m allergic to cream,” people will understand that I react to it in some way, which is true.

By speaking up and telling others how we feel about something can be a game changer and I think it could help you as well.

My name is Lizzy, and I am a survivor.

Photo by Etienne Boulanger on Unsplash

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