How We Are Changed In The Aftermath Of Trauma

by Conscious Reminder

The morning sun radiates its warmth into my skin.

There is only me in this place where gentle waves caress my feet and golden sand stretches for miles, untouched in soft light and daybreak silence.

Once, I would have reveled in a moment like this. My hopeful blue eyes would have taken in every remnant of the scene before me, my heart unable to do anything more than burst wide open at the delight of it all.

But today, I am unmoved by beauty. Just as I was yesterday. I have been there every day for longer than I care to remember. Where beauty would have once soaked into my bones and renewed my soul, it no longer reaches me.

I am untouchable.

This is the aftermath of trauma—the way it has changed me and broken me.
My life now exists behind a glass pane. I see the world around me, but it is muted and dulled. Once upon a time, I felt too much; now I feel too little, if anything at all. Emotions overwhelm me; I am not able to process them anymore. I shield myself from their onslaught behind the glass. I’m watching them. However, I am not yet ready to feel their presence. Not yet.

I try to hear the words my heart used to speak, but they elude me. My heart remains silent, as does my mind, both of them worn out from the fight, loyal soldiers who spent too long on the frontlines and no longer have the will to persevere. “Courage, dear heart,” I say, but my heart is not ready to listen. It is not ready to be trusted. It is not ready to once again believe the world is good and people are good. In the absence of its voice, I hear only the faint murmur of disconnected beats. Though I am not dead, I am anything but alive.

I am disoriented; I find no rest in the spaces where my presence once filled. I wonder who this woman is. She has transformed into a different person, yet she remains uncertain about her future path. Lost and confused, I wander through this no-man’s land, homesick and in search of a place to find shelter and rest. However, all I find are paths lined with thistles and thorns, and my soul yearns for a place not promised to me.

My heart no longer lies upon my sleeve; I am a patchwork frame, with gaping holes roughly sewn with clinical sutures. No longer will I wear my heart out for the world to see. The world will no longer demolish it with its razor-sharp tongues and cruel-intentioned hands, leaving me to clean up the mess, even though I can barely lift myself off the ground. I am withdrawn. Insular. I trust no one, let no one close, and reach out for no one at night when the silence becomes so frighteningly loud that I cannot stand it.
I’ve lost the ability to create because beauty fostered my creativity. And while beauty no longer touches me, neither can creativity emerge. My page is filled with scrawls and scribbles, useless words with no heart and no meaning, and angry lines drawn through even angrier words.

I find myself exhausted yet unable to sleep, trapped in a bitter paradox that further intensifies my incapacity to function. I am preoccupied by thoughts that lack clarity and distracted by fears that lack certainty.

Trauma. The emotional response to an extremely negative event.

Those around me are uncomfortable with my response. They would rather I just find a way to deal with it and get over it. Seeing a mess on the floor tends to make people nervous. However, I refuse to force myself to smile in order to please a world that likes everything to look pretty.

Trauma has no rules. We make our way through the darkness and reach for whatever we can to steady ourselves. We cannot rush the work of healing. We cannot rush our hearts into finding their courage once more.

For now, life behind the glass pane is a place where I am impervious to touch, hurt, or breakage. It is where I watch the world with cautious eyes, until the day comes when I feel safe enough to exist within it. And on that day, I will step out from behind the glass. The sun will warm my weary limbs, and beauty will graze my tentative soul.

And in that moment, I will know the healing has begun.