Speaking Up and Seeking Help
How can you tend to a wound you can't see? And how do you know if you have trauma lingering in your mind that needs a healing touch from those who are equipped and qualified in helping treat it?
These are
questions I asked in my previous post about trauma, and questions I found out the
answers to the hard way about a year ago.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I experienced a lot of traumatic things growing up that I had no clue were still affecting my daily life 20 years later. My unhealed trauma was unknowingly bleeding into every aspect of my life, from my thought processes to my conflict resolution skills (or lack thereof), my reactions to things, and how I related to people.
I became a
follower of Jesus when I was a child, but it wasn't until about 13 years ago
that I truly began growing in my faith. Before that time, my faith was very
shallow, and I didn't really understand what it meant to be a Christian.
I got saved and
baptized, tried to avoid doing "bad" things, and served in the nursery at church from time
to time, but as far as having a real relationship with Jesus, that concept was
definitely missing from my understanding of Christianity.
My life was relatively calm between the time I moved out at 18 and the time I truly surrendered to Christ at 25. I got married at 19, had my first daughter at 20, and mostly kept to myself, which limited the amount of conflict I experienced, and thus, kept my unhealed trauma responses at bay and hidden in the deep recesses of my mind.
Once I began
following Jesus, getting to know Him through His Word, praying more and
building an actual relationship with Him, that's when things started getting
difficult — and that's when my trauma began rearing its ugly head.
Well, you can pretty much open your Bible to any random page, and you won't have to read very far to see that God is and always has been very much invested in, indwelt by, and involved with people.
Some chapters of the Bible are literally just the names of people.
And if God is all about creating, pursuing, healing, and redeeming people, then what should we, as His people, be all about as well? Doing good things with and for people.
God is a "people person", and as His people, we should be “people people”, too!
(Okay, I'm going to stop using the word "people" — for now, anyway!)
Being a follower of Christ requires us to be involved with other humans (see how I changed it up there?). And being involved with other humans can be messy. You've got different personalities, different backgrounds, different opinions and beliefs and desires, all crashing into one another when you put two human beings together and you try to get them to do basically anything.
Sometimes these personalities, backgrounds, opinions, beliefs, and desires are able to co-exist, but oftentimes they clash. It just comes with living in a fallen and broken world. And when these things about us clash with another person, if we've been taught healthy conflict resolution, then we deal with the differences, come to mutual place of respect, get what needs to be accomplished done, and then, we move on.
But what happens when we've got unhealed trauma from past abuses or traumatic experiences taking up residence in our brain? How does that affect the resolution process?
Well, as someone who happens to have gone through this very thing, let me share with you what happened with me when I was faced with various conflicts and clashing personalities, opinions, desires, etc.
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As a follower of and ambassador for Christ, I have been involved in various ministries in multiple churches in multiple states. I have never had a traditional job, so my exposure to people as an adult has either been through my children's schools, our neighborhoods, or through churches. And for whatever reason, the Lord has positioned me in various leadership roles all throughout the different churches we were a part of.
These roles were all very different, but the one thing they all had in common was that I had to minister to and with people. And for someone who struggled with speaking up and actually talking to people for the better part of my life up until this point, this was quite a challenge for me. I truly had to rely on the Lord to speak through me so much, and He was always faithful!
Every ministry I was a part of would always start off well. I would be able to keep it together enough on the outside to hide the overwhelming feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, and fear roaring inside of me — things I attributed to nervousness, shyness, stage fright, or being introverted. I had no idea that what I was experiencing was actually anxiety. When it was time to speak in front of a big group or pray out loud or speak truth to the people I was ministering to, it was truly a supernatural experience and I could always feel the Holy Spirit take over and speak through me.
The issues would arise any time someone would say something critical of anything I was doing, or when something the Lord was calling me to do wasn’t well received, due to conflicting desires. When a stronger personality came into the mix (which if you put me up in a group of people, I would likely be the least domineering in every way, so it wouldn’t take much for someone to have a stronger personality than me), I’d subconsciously wave the white flag and give in to whatever other people wanted, even when it killed me inside or I knew it wasn't what God wanted.
And because of my unhealed trauma and the unhealthy coping mechanisms that I had been turning to since childhood, instead of communicating and resolving problems like a healthy individual, I’d keep things to myself and avoid my problems. The longer those thoughts and hurts lingered inside of me, the more damage they did to my heart and mind — which ultimately began dictating my actions.
I’d finally get to the place where the pain was so overwhelming that I’d begin seeing every little thing as a personal attack. I would start feeling like the people I once had a good relationship with no longer liked me, and I’d isolate myself and slowly disengage.
Instead of seeking God’s approval and resting in His love, I was busy trying to get love, acceptance, and approval from other people to fill the void I had been carrying around since childhood. And when the people in my life didn’t or couldn’t fill those voids, I’d be devastated and feel totally rejected (which happened routinely because no one can live up to those expectations).
It’d get to the point where I couldn’t handle being a part of whatever ministry or church I was involved with at the time, and God, in His grace (both for me and the other people involved), would call me to step down and move me in a different direction.
And don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of things that other people did during these chaotic episodes that were hurtful, ungodly, and unbiblical, but it was incredibly difficult for me to speak up and address those things before they led to the point of my internal implosion. And the times I was able to muster up the courage to say something, it often didn't go well. There were many times when my concerns would be brushed off, minimized, or turned around on me, and I'd just default to keeping the frustrations and pain these things caused to myself, while continuing to run from my problems.
I’d experience this cycle over and over, and I’d always come away with two distorted truths:
1. Everyone in these situations hated me.
2. No one in these situations were legit because if they were, they wouldn’t act or treat me like that.
It never occurred to me that I might be part of the problem. And it never occurred to me that those views weren't healthy or normal.
I was viewing everything and everyone through a broken lens and I wasn’t able to see the full truth in these situations. The trauma I experienced as a child was being triggered by the conflicts and relatively normal interactions and hiccups that come with being a human being and interacting with other human beings.
I was ready to stop going to church altogether after another painful ministry experience. I was fully convinced that everyone (outside of some family members and a couple of friends) was working for the enemy and that I had no other choice but to go it alone. That isolation was fine for a few weeks, but eventually, it became too much for me and it was pretty obvious that I wasn't in a healthy place, mentally.
This became even more evident after a really difficult conversation I had with a sister in Christ, who (unknowingly for both of us) triggered my unhealed trauma.
Her gracious and confusing response stopped me in my tracks and forced me to take a good, hard look at myself in the mirror. Could I really be seeing things inaccurately?
I denied it at first, but the more I sat with the Lord, the more His Spirit prodded those wounded places in my mind, and He gently began pulling off the scales from my eyes one by one.
God had to let me hit rock bottom with no one to seek approval from. No one to blame for feeling the way I did, but myself. I had been running from my problems for so long, but I couldn’t run anymore.
God, in His grace, had me right where He wanted me all along — He was ready to remove the "retractable leash" of past trauma from around my neck so that I could finally be healed and free.
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It was in this season a little less than a year ago where God led me to a book called, "Good Boundaries and Goodbyes" by Lysa TerKeurst. As I began reading this book, a friend of mine literally texted me out of the blue and sent a link to Lysa TerKeurst's podcast called, "Therapy and Theology" (having no idea that I had just started reading her new book). God began to show me through these Christian resources how broken my mind still was from the things I had endured since childhood.
I realized that I needed to go to counseling to work through a lot of my issues because I was at the point where I just couldn't endure anymore hurt. I couldn't take one more relationship, one more ministry, or one more personal goal crashing and failing because of my past trauma and my inability to resolve conflicts in a healthy way.
I had known for a long time that I needed to go to counseling, but just like all of my other problems, I avoided that, too.
But no more.
I was done running and hiding and hurting alone.
With the help of the Holy Spirit, it was time to speak up and to seek help.
So, I prayed. I surrendered. I asked God to guide my steps. I did a quick search for Christian counselors in my area and got connected with one back in December, and God has used my time in therapy to do such a mighty work in my life!
He's opened my eyes to the depth of my brokenness and brought light to the pain and darkness residing in the deepest places of my heart and mind — the places that were wounded and festering and spilling out into everything else I touched. The places I was so desperately trying to hide, ignore, and avoid.
God loved me too much to just leave me drowning in my pit of dysfunction. And He feels this way about all of His children!
Some things I've since learned about trauma and how it affects us long after the injuries have occurred:
1. Trauma changes the way we think and see things.
2. Our brains will start operating in survival mode any time we are triggered by a situation that subconsciously reminds us of the situation that caused our trauma.
Common triggers could be a smell, a song, a facial expression, interpersonal conflict, a person, a place, the list goes on.
3. Untreated and unhealed trauma can cause mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, and various personality disorders and dysfunctions.
4. These mental illnesses, disorders, and dysfunctions can manifest themselves differently in every person, depending on personality types, stress levels, life situations, and the severity of past trauma.
5. More often than not, the people who have these illnesses or disorders aren't even aware they have them. They're just sort of stuck in unhealthy patterns and cycles.
6. Sometimes past trauma can be so painful that our minds block out the memories, but we can still experience triggers without even knowing why we've been triggered.
7. Our bodies will oftentimes respond physically to mental triggers.
Common physical manifestations include shaking, headaches, lethargy, upset stomach, muscle tension, insomnia.
8. There is help available for most mental illnesses, mental disorders, and dysfunctions through proper therapy and with the power of the Holy Spirit.
9. The devil uses trauma to trap us and hold us back from being able to function in the freedom we have in Christ, which is why he has made it his mission to put things into our paths that he knows will trigger us.
If you are reading this and it resonates with you at all, let me encourage you to seek help and find a Christian counselor who can help you identify and process through any past trauma so that you can heal from it and walk in freedom!
As believers and as humans, our identity consists of body, mind, and spirit. Just as we would seek physical treatment for physical injuries that are beyond our body's natural ability to heal itself from, and we would go to a trusted pastor/Christian leader for spiritual counsel and spiritual healing in situations that are beyond our own wisdom and knowledge, it's vital that we take psychological injuries just as seriously and seek help from those who are trained and equipped in walking people through the necessary processes for mental healing.
If you've experienced past trauma or abuse, chances are pretty high that you have some unhealed places lingering in your mind that God wants to heal — places that are likely the cause of any overwhelming issues and frustrations you may be experiencing in your daily life, both within yourself and in your relationships with others.
If we want to walk in freedom and healing, we must take the initiative. If we will do the natural, God will do the supernatural and bring the healing we never knew was possible or needed!
Taking the first step can be daunting, but I can promise you this: it's worth it because you're worth it.
If you enjoy reading and you'd like some good book recommendations regarding this subject, click here to check out a list of books the Lord has used to bring a lot of awareness and information to my own life.
God is not blind to our tears and to the things in our lives that cause us pain and heartache. Sometimes the thing that is causing us the most pain in our lives is our unhealed trauma — and that’s because it affects so much more than we realize!
God can heal you, my friend. Will you speak up and seek help?
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