When one first becomes a victim of trauma as a child, it's hard to remember a life 'before'. Thus one doesn't know how much the trauma has changed one's course in life. We are after all the product of our memories and experiences, which consequently form our expectations and goals in life. It is through the contact with others that we may learn that we have in fact undergone a traumatic transformation. All too often this is due to behaviour on the side of the traumatised person that can be termed 'dysfunctional', as it is counter-productive for them and can cause major social and career issues. The way we seek out and respond to social interactions is after all determined by our personality, which is that which our memories and experiences formed.
Being a victim is easy. After all, there are no special requirements. There can be some expectations of one, such as providing sufficient resistance ('putting up a fight'), or by showing the appropriate restraint and acceptable social behaviour on one's side prior to the traumatic event(s). For childhood trauma it's even easier. After all, isn't the very definition of a child a person who is dependent on adults for their very livelihood, which by definition requires an almost naive level of trust?
By becoming aware of the trauma which one has suffered and the impact it has had on one's life, one is offered a choice. Either one can choose to ignore it and continue as before, or one can form a new personality role: that of the therapist/loving parent. While the former choice is very likely to end poorly, the latter choice is not without issues either. It requires one to slowly abandon the feeling of being a victim and to build up a personality which is not inextricably linked with the role of being a victim.
Are you a victim or a person?
In the therapist/loving parent role, one tries to understand one's own actions (the traumatised child's) and feelings in the context of the trauma that had been suffered. Exploring this trauma in a controlled, safe setting is paramount to better learn and understand it. Together, the traumatised child and therapist/loving parent can experience these memories and associated feelings, with the latter able to add a new level of context and comprehension to just what has happened, and why it should be left in the past.
The traumatised child's behavioural patterns are unmistakable in one's daily thoughts, feelings and actions. The original single or repeated act of violence may have disrupted the child's world so much that all they could do was to patch over these memories with equally strong emotions, seeking coping mechanisms to deal with the psychological and mental stresses that this causes. A simple feeling of discomfort over time grows into a feeling of continuous apprehension and fear. The act of being physically touched may end up evoking strong feelings of revulsion.
If there is one thing which I have learned over the past decades, it is that it is extremely easy to not be aware of being a victim, and also very easy to live that victim role to the fullest extent. Not questioning one's own dysfunctional behaviour, nor being aware of anything that may have happened in the past.
I mean, sure, the roughly fifteen years that I spent dealing with the ignorance and unwillingness of the medical system were by no means fun, to the point where for my psychotherapist at the time it was sufficient to chalk it up as the cause for the PTSD with which he diagnosed me. Yet there was more than just that. The more time passed, the more it became obvious that my struggles in the medical system was more about re-traumatising and re-victimisation. I could after all remember dysfunctional behaviour from my side years before my mishaps with doctors.
Small details kept bugging me, such as my mother asking at one point whether anyone had abused me when I was a young child, to her recalling how my personality had dramatically changed when I was about five years old, with me no longer accepting any kind of physical contact, caressing or embracing. It all made for an eerie possibility, which allowed me to finally place the continuous feeling of intense sadness and apprehension. This lead to the resurgence of fragments of memories and sensations. All of unspeakable, traumatic things.
The intervening years between that original trauma and today have not been kind to me, either. From being bullied at school for years, to my parents divorcing, to my struggles as an intersex person in the medical system, to repeatedly suffering physical, psychological and sexual abuse, to having my money and belongings stolen, I had every reason to feel like a victim. Because I am one.
Yet the thing which therapist me has been able to convince traumatised child me of is that one can never live a normal, happy life if one cannot let go of the feeling of being a victim. This letting go involves drawing a line between 'then' and 'now'. The trauma of the past has to be seen as a contamination that if left unchecked will corrupt one's life for now and forever. Since this happens by the generating of new, corrupted memories through one's actions and responses, one must make sure that all of these actions and responses are untainted by the trauma(s).
Feeling apprehensive about something when you know it's harmless? Just do it. Work towards those small leaps of faith (or fate), where one trusts reason over emotions and feelings. Listen to the anxious voice in the back of your mind telling you that you can still get out of something, that you can still dodge those actions, those responsibilities, those opportunities. You can look at all the seemingly easy excuses the part of your brain corrupted by trauma offers you.
And then ignore all of it.
Because if you give into the trauma, if you accept feeling like a victim, accept being re-traumatised over and over, the trauma will have transformed you from a person into a victim. By living your life as a victim through the lens of the trauma, you give up everything that could have been.
Not living my life through the traumas of the past is very tough. Usually you'd let your subconscious mind wander around, dragging up bits and pieces that form feelings and semi-coherent thoughts that your conscious mind can then take and put into words and actions. Yet the same subconscious mind is the very same that has been the most corrupted by the trauma, and thus it is unreliable. Every single thing that my conscious mind gets handed by my subconscious mind has to be checked, re-checked and validated for being free of the taint of trauma.
Anything that feels defeatist, or helpless, or needlessly negative, or otherwise 'smells' wrong is discarded and replaced with a conscious thought as my conscious mind has to steer my feelings to remain untainted as well. It's a constant struggle to remain on top, yet it is a necessary one.
Theoretically, by remaining on top of this process, one can finally draw that line between 'then' and 'now', with it becoming easier as the last tainted memories are pushed away into the past by new, untainted memories and experiences.
Even if the feeling of trauma remains palpable, the most important thing is that one will have done their utmost to live life as a person, instead of a victim. Because to live one's live as a victim is to have lived no life at all.
Maya
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