Make the Invisible Visible - Celebrate the Gold in Your Emotional Reactions

Image by InspiredImages from Pixabay 

Shame, pain and guilt have a lot to answer for. I remember thinking that a while back when I heard of someone who had committed suicide and his family hadn’t known what had driven him to it because, on the face of it, nothing was amiss. There seems to be so much we humans keep hidden because of shame, pain and guilt.

V (formerly known as Eve Ensler), who wrote The Vagina Monologues, an episodic play that began in the 1990’s and speaks in many voices and in many ways about violence against women, said recently:  

“If something doesn’t exist you can do anything to it. If something only exists in the dark you can rape it, colonise it, own it and destroy it. Once you declare Vagina Monologues you’re saying vaginas have voices, they can speak, they can be seen, and they can be visible.”

Her feeling is that making the invisible visible is a very scary thing, especially in a time when people wanted women to be controlled. As a child she suffered violence, sexual abuse and humiliation at the hands of her father. As an adult she is determined and says “I’m not going to have shame, I’m going to be powerful, funny, I’m going to own it”.

In a world where movements like Black Lives Matter and Ni Una Menos are gaining traction, there continues to be a lot of big-T trauma being outed so to speak. Yet, in tracking the human rights movement back to Cyrus the Great, who freed all slaves in Babylon and declared in 539 BC that people should choose their own religion, it becomes painfully obvious that we humans are not quick learners.

I suspect that is because behind all big-T trauma lies little-t trauma. I’m talking about the kind of trauma that derives from the more insidious kinds of behaviours that result in adults who feel the need to take power from others (by projecting and deflecting their own pain) in order to feel worthy in themselves.

I call it insidious because I think we each have our own little stories, which seem so benign in the face of the stories of the horrific big-T trauma we hear about every day, yet shapes lives nonetheless.

Although I grew up with two parents who loved me and wanted me, I felt loved conditionally. As I said in Normal Is Dysfunctional That Is the Growth Opportunity, for a long time the predominant theme of child rearing has been about teaching children to be good and fit in.
​
So growing up conditioned to “be good and do not upset my parents” seems a typical experience. Certainly I didn’t feel like I was in any better or any worse a position than any of the other kids I grew up with. Grooming us kids to fit in and be good members of society was where it was at. 

However, in terms of the development of the human psyche, growing loving and connected adults first requires kids who have a healthy sense of self and safety.

It’s not the forced sleeping and eating schedules I remember, though I suspect my body does, it’s the anxiety I felt being around my mother (who was the one at home looking after us most of the time). When I read Dr Maté’s words “it’s not our children’s behaviour but the anxiety it elicits within us that we have to learn how to manage” I knew I’d finally found an explanation for what I sensed my whole childhood.

Left on her own with us kids, my mum was always hyper-tense, it was like entering an alternate reality as she wasn’t like that around others. I learned to anticipate how things might play out and to be as perfect as I could to stay out of trouble. Looking back through adult eyes I can connect the dots to her own childhood, something I only really learned about when she was dying.

Although I had always sensed my mum’s dislike of her father (who had died when she was seven), she never told me anything specific until just before she died, when she said “I remember sitting on the floor drawing, and hearing the crack behind me, and seeing your gran go from one side of my peripheral vision to the other”.

Trauma begets trauma. I know because when I had my own kids and they needed my positive attention all the time, I came unwound. I found myself getting angry at them, yelling at them and wandering around chuntering the same way my mother used to chunter – even using some of the same words.

That “oh my, I’ve become my mother” moment was a wakeup call. Instead of putting it all on my kids, as I’d had done to me, I decided to take full ownership of my behaviour before it became ingrained and marked the pattern of another childhood.

Basically, I had to reparent myself. If I caught myself reacting, I’d stop mid-yell, apologise for yelling and actively work to calm my triggered nervous system. I explained to my kids what I was doing. They may have experienced schizophrenic behaviour but I figured that it was better than experiencing me putting it all on them.

I also made myself a chart and got my kids to decide whether I got a tick for talking to them respectfully. They still had boundaries, but I was getting better at holding them in a healthy way. In short, I made the invisible visible.

When my youngest daughter had a bout of meltdowns recently and started lashing out, I was inspired by a story I’d heard from relationship expert Terry Real, I said:

“Hey, you’re my daughter, I love you and I’m always going to love you. But it’s not ever going to be okay for you to yell and scream and lash out at us like this. You know dad and I grew up with too much yelling and screaming and we work hard to make this a better environment, what do you need right now to help you calm down?”

We are committed to breaking the chain of pain, but it’s not always easy. I don’t know about you, but my litmus test has always been who I am at home, that is where any mask I’ve been subconsciously wearing falls.

It is easy to blame other people and circumstances, but most of the time I’m emotionally charged it’s because I’ve triggered the little child inside who is subconsciously trying to be good to appease her inner parents.

“When we give ourselves permission to stop being the obedient daughter, we become the responsible adult.” Glennon Doyle

I suspect that is the case for most people when they are emotionally charged and it’s out of kilter with the actual circumstances. Well, either being obedient towards or rebelling against the inner parent.

When I look through my adult eyes, once the emotional charge has passed, I find I’ve either not had or I’m not holding a healthy boundary and I’ve over reacted towards the person or circumstances.

For example, when I had to catch a return flight home the other day, I was in a pretty triggered state because of the time constraints involved. As I child I was always being hurried along by mum, who used to speed walk everywhere with us, and was always anxious in case we were late.

I even have recurring dreams about not being able to get packed in time to catch a flight. So when my partner saw me having trouble packing the cases and said “you’re shaking”, I was aware that I was in a traumatised state, my body remembering.

While we caught our taxi and go to the airport in plenty of time, my nervous system was still on high alert, anticipating getting through check in and safely home (flying not being a favourite thing of mine at the best of times).

When one of our bags registered slightly overweight – and the others being underweight - I will confess I had a momentary meltdown. The airline we were flying with is really pedantic about the 23kg limit, and the choice is to repack your bag there on the check in floor or pay an $80 excess fee.

Having felt like I’d just survived something in getting the bag packed in the first place, there was a moment when I had to shift gear to get the job done. That moment felt like a slow motion freefall, and the airline worker’s calm but directive voice cut through to restart my system. She said “it’s okay; it’s only a kilo or so, find a couple of books or toiletry bag and put them in your other bag.”

Part of me wanted to scream “it’s not okay!” but another part of me knew the futility of my resistance so I obeyed and moved past the moment. After the emotional charge had calmed I was extremely grateful I hadn’t completely humiliated myself by expressing the full blown tantrum I’d wanted to have.

But it also made me realise I hadn’t actually catered to my needs by organising the help I needed to pack and get us back to the airport, instead I’d just taken it all on my shoulders, and I then wanted to lay that anger and resentment at the feet of those I travelled with. I became aware that, on the inside, I was waiting for my hard work to be noticed, resentful it wasn’t an old well worn pattern.

Lesson learned, I resolved to organise things quite differently the next time we took a trip, having each person pack and unpack their own case instead of playing the martyr.

This is the essence of small-t trauma. It lives within, invisible, reigniting the well worn thought patterns and pathways in my nervous system. But by making the invisible visible, becoming conscious of what is really at play, and learning how to react differently, I can create newer, healthier reactions that empower and serve me - and those around me - much better.

What is within you that would benefit from being brought into the light?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Clear the Fog of Trauma to See the Magnificence of Your Being, Normal Is Dysfunctional That Is the Growth Opportunity, You Don’t Need to Be Perfect to Make a Breakthrough, Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Is Your Responsibility and Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Will Be Your Limitation. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.