Validating Emotions

This is an archived post that was originally published at beyond-terminal.com

I had another consulting session with Amy Quale at Wise Ink last week. We confirmed that I’m going to have the opening chapter of my book be when I’m starting college. By restructuring it this way, I will be able to focus more thematically around how I, as an adult, processed my childhood trauma. The flashbacks that I include will be separated and italicized from the rest of the narrative so that you, as the reader, get a sense of the degree to which they are impacting my adult self and how resistant I am to confronting what is in front of me. (Note that the italicized section below operates a bit differently than future segments will in that the flashback is not incited by a trigger.)

Why is it important to retool my book? Ultimately, I want to address the impact of childhood trauma on adults. I learned the hard way that this trauma can’t be compartmentalized. It’s just not that tidy – and I think this is the case for most people.

__________  

This passage follows last week’s post.

I moved through my days like this because I didn’t know how else to do it. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. I saw everything through, and I graduated. I graduated from Northwestern University. 

I was good – no, great – at persevering no matter the cost. But even I, the master of illusion, knew that this approach had taken a toll, and I couldn’t expect my body to continue on to medical school unless I figured out how to live better. 

Despite all my challenges, I still considered myself somewhat lucky. I had beaten the odds and was alive! Was it selfish to want more than what I already had?

This made me think about the time I had prayed to God when I was 11 and had lost so much.

I press my hands together and bow my head, just as I’ve seen my mom do. I really didn’t know how to pray, but I thought I might as well try. God, I thought in my head. God, I don’t want to ask for too much. But, please, please, don’t take away my ability to read. You can take other things. But, please, please not my ability to read.

This was a prayer I had said when reading had become so difficult and my life so unpredictable that I was afraid I’d wake up the next morning and – poof! – what had once been difficult would become impossible.

Since I had relearned so much more than anyone thought possible, I tried my best to shift my thoughts toward gratitude and the importance of being flexible. The gratitude piece, while not easy, was definitely easier than the flexibility piece. I had no clue what to pursue if it wasn’t medical school, that beacon I had set my eyes on for the past four years.

I had time on my hands to figure things out though, because I was now in my childhood bedroom in my parents’ house to figure out my next steps. It really was an idyllic place — out my window were half a dozen hundred-year-old elm trees. I’d always loved trees, and marveled at their ability to stay rooted yet sway during thunderstorms. Trees – inanimate trees! – were better at adjusting to a new environment than I was. I really couldn’t fathom placing myself in a different environment than the one I had originally envisioned. I was supposed to have it figured out though.

The big question was how I had messed up so badly.

I didn’t have to dig too deep to discover my mistake. It turned out that I thought I could “fix” my body by putting forth enough effort. That four years was a lot of time. Surely enough time to fix a broken body. The challenge though was that pushing harder and harder didn’t do the trick.  

While I didn’t have the answers, I thought Yahoo might. I contemplated different career-related questions to enter into the search box. But, before I tackled this, I knew I needed to figure out how to fix my body.

So I began by typing “how to cure sweaty palms.” I initially came across a surgery called an endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy. However, when I learned about the potential side effects – a collapsed lung, compensatory hyperhidrosis, Horner’s Syndrome, Reynaud’s disease, difficulty breathing – I questioned who in their right mind would ever consider doing this. 

That’s why I opted to look into biofeedback instead. It didn’t involve any cutting of nerves and it supposedly could help you learn to control your involuntary responses, including your heart rate, skin temperature, and blood pressure. Perfect, that’s exactly what I needed to do — get control of my out-of-control body.  

With this checked off, I looked into a job that would give me flexibility so I could schedule therapy after my work hours. Through my searches, I came across an opening for a para with preschoolers with special needs in a neighboring district. This definitely wasn’t medical school, but I thought I’d nonetheless enjoy a chance to work with and help kids.

__________ 

Many of us who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s and faced adversity were not given the skill set for how to process trauma even if we sought out a therapist. (The therapist I saw when I was 11-years-old insisted that I had been sexually abused, that he knew better than I did, and that I was in denial. Jeesh.)

Our children are growing up in a time where we’re addressing many -isms (e.g., racism, sexism, classism) that exist. We’re calling things out more. Along with this, we’re addressing and giving voice to emotions and recognizing that emotions are not good or bad – it’s what you do with them that matters most. I think this is healthy. I learned the hard way that suppression doesn’t work well.

Creating a culture in which emotions are normalized and validated will help our kids develop the necessary social-and emotional skills so that they can have healthy and happy relationships and be productive adults.