Before I Begin
I’m really not sure how to start this post. I guess the best place to begin is by saying upfront that what I want to share today is very painful for me, it is raw, it is vulnerable and honestly I’m quite nervous about sharing. BUT I feel I should and want to share, and why do I feel that? Because the journey I have been on in the past 6-7 months of my life (although I’m now realising it has actually been an almost lifelong journey) has involved the most excruciatingly hard and painful moments I have ever experienced. And I have learned so much in this walk…especially I have learned what the word trauma means, and in the context of my own life. As well, I share what I want to here, in the hope that someone, somewhere might read this post as they are going through their own trauma journey and I hope that you might be encouraged. Perhaps you are feeling hopeless, lost, wondering, and trying to make sense of things in your life. If you are feeling anything like that, I would love for you to feel encouraged that there IS hope; I don’t just throw that out there easily without experience…I can say that there have been many times in the past 6 months where I have felt fully and utterly devoid of hope, struggling to believe I could get through this, wondering HOW do I get through this? You might know the phrase ‘Dark night of the soul’ from the poem by John Cross, I have been going through my own dark night of the soul. This poem is something my therapist has mentioned to me a few times through this season. I have had many dark nights, or traumas, in my life and this recent period of life, in some ways, has been the hardest to even begin to fathom, or make any steps forward. This gives me a place from which I feel I can say that I, we, CAN work through the trauma and there is a light at the end of this tunnel.
I’d like to be upfront and open that I won’t be going into details about my trauma in this post. And I am aware that we all have our trauma’s we have been through and perhaps it’s more helpful for now that I don’t share the specific traumas I have been through; by keeping the details of my own trauma vague, I desire as you read this that you can resonate with my words, and perhaps start to identify and make steps to work through the traumas you may have been through and identify the impacts it might have had on your life.
Where this painful journey began
With all of that being said, I can start with describing where I was in July/August 2024. I had been home to England for an amazing sabbatical, that refreshed and envisioned me while giving me time to have so many special moments with my friends and family. I got to see some incredible sights along the way, eat some good food, and be in the company of those I love and care for. It was good for my heart!
You can read more of my sabbatical experiences here:
Dave Truss
I arrived back in Romania, July 2024, ready to get stuck back into life with the Roma and Forget Me Not Ministries.
Getting back into life and work with the Roma in Romania, July 2024
But during July to August 2024, I become more and more aware that something didn’t ‘feel right’. My self confidence had hit rock bottom, I was withdrawing socially and in most areas of my life. I was feeling apathetic, depressed, more anxious than I have ever been and wondering just what was going on?! I would sit in my car, feeling all these things and I felt so lost, so hopeless and struggling to just function day to day. Engaging with the Roma we work and do life with, was the only thing I felt capable of in that period and the only thing that felt like it was going well for me. This all came to a head in August when I realised I couldn’t go on like this, and I posted on a support group I am in, telling them what I was feeling/experiencing. A psychologist in the group, replied saying that I should look into therapy because what I was describing sounded to them like unresolved trauma.
And that was a crystallising moment for me, because 12 years ago I had stumbled across an article online that described signs and symptoms that might be seen in trauma survivors/unresolved trauma. And it had shocked me because as I read that list all those years ago, I realised I could say yes to almost every sign/symptom on that list! I shared this with my close friend, who said she thought I should find a therapist to explore this more. One of my biggest regrets in my life, is that I chose to ignore that good advice, and tried to forget reading that article, and more importantly I chose to block the memories of the traumas I had experienced earlier in life. It is a huge regret I hold, but also I recognise that perhaps I wasn’t quite ready 12 years ago to confront these traumas. I’ll never know for sure what could have been different, but something I have been grieving in this process the past 6 months or so is the many ‘what if’s’.
What if I had confronted this 12 years ago? What if I had started to work on this even earlier than that? Who would ‘un-traumatised Dave’ be? And that last one has been a big one to contend with, as I learn more and more about trauma during this journey and just how much it can affect and impact someone’s life, development and well-being, to the point it can literally affect the body physically (chronic health issues most of my adult life are making much more sense now).
I have written on here before that I have been in therapy for the past 5 years with an incredible psychologist who has helped me in so many ways, more than I ever thought could be possible. And my faith helps me so much. The combination of working with my therapist and journeying with God on things in my life, has changed my life completely the last few years. So in August 2024 having received that message in the support group, I contacted my therapist and listed out the signs and symptoms of trauma that resonated with me. I described to him the traumatic memories I had.
I learn more and more about trauma during this journey and just how much it can affect and impact someone’s life, development and well-being
My therapist responded to this with such care, compassion and ideas for us to work on in therapy to open everything up. So began the next 6 months of discussing the traumas I have been through, and working through them slowly. I am nowhere near the end of this journey, in many ways it feels like I have just begun. We are doing a course at the moment that relates to trauma, and the course leader said in one of the lessons that many traumatic events that an individual goes through are just a few seconds, minutes, maybe hours in length but they can cause decades of significant impact on the person who survived the trauma. That resonated a lot with me. In some ways, I will carry these traumas with me the rest of my life, and will have to continue to navigate them.
Flashbacks, nightmares, insomnia, distressing images in my mind whenever I close my eyes. Anxiety, tears, apathy. Anger, grief, shame. Even anger at God for allowing me to go through this. I have experienced them all daily at different levels of intensity for the past 7 months. It’s as if opening up this journey by identifying and accepting the traumas I have been through and how devastatingly impactful they have been on my life, my heart, and mind, it has opened the floodgates to all these intense emotions. I have finally started to confront them, and I’m most definitely in the storm of this journey.
Self Awareness, denial and trauma: The jigsaw pieces fall into place
Self awareness, especially in therapy, has been something that has been so interesting for me. Before this journey, my awareness was zero of trauma and its effects. I was also completely unaware of the very personal impact trauma has had on my own life. I have learned a lot about Dissociative Amnesia and dissociation and realised how much they have played a part in my life at times. As I mentioned, I have learned so much about trauma and how it can cause so many different issues on so many different levels. I hope to explore those impacts more in future articles. It is helping me so much not only learning through therapy and my own research, but also my college course on mental health is teaching me a huge deal too.
But one thing I have felt so many times during this process, and something I have remarked so many times is the sensation of ‘the jigsaw pieces falling into place’. So many times during my life I have asked myself questions, like why did I have suicidal thoughts starting at 11-12 years old? Why did I self harm as a teenager? Why have I always felt a perpetual sense of doom/despair in me, even at my most joyful moments? Why have I struggled so much with depression and anxiety. Why has life just felt so hard to navigate successfully sometimes? Also in my work with the Roma with FMN following the lead of Rachel Ross, our incredible director, I have seen many, many people who have been through their own traumas. I have seen heartbreaking situations of abuse, trafficking and violence. And I have always felt a response in my heart, and a desire to intervene that was very strong. And I think a sense of injustice when seeing those situations is something most people would feel. But often it has felt personal for me, it has brought out a deep rage in my heart seeing people be mistreated. I think I am more aware now that I have felt that anger at injustice like anyone else would and probably should, while also perhaps resonating with seeing someone go through a trauma and subconsciously wanting to intervene so that person doesn’t have to go through the impacts of trauma that I have been through myself.
Those jigsaw pieces falling into place has been simultaneously so helpful, and bringing peace through having so many answers and insights. While also devastating and so painful to accept, identify and navigate. Accepting and naming ‘I am a trauma survivor’ has been incredibly hard for me, and in many ways something that has made me feel shame. I am trying to work on that shame I feel.
So, I feel like a broken person, like I said I swing very often from hopeful to hopeless. But I am noticing more recently that those swings are less frequent and more and more there is a peace growing, and the possibility that in the future I can be a more healed version of me is becoming something I slowly believe in.
Why did I write this post?
There is so much more I could share and things I have learned along the way. I hope to share more in the future and provide more resources looking at trauma, but for now this is enough. It has been hard to be so open and vulnerable about this season of my life, and so it might help to explain what my motivations for writing this post were. There are really just 2 main factors:
- I know from my own experience just how agonisingly difficult and painful working through trauma can be, and I know how many times I have felt hopeless and wondered when and if I will get to healing. I’m not there yet, but I’m at a point in this journey now where I believe it is possible, and I want to share that with others who might also be feeling that hopelessness. And I’ll be very honest, I have days where I don’t feel that hope, it oscillates sometimes even within the same day. This isn’t a straight line path, there are many up’s and downs along the way and I know it will take repeated work and effort from me, probably for the rest of my life. But the important thing is the possibility, the hope, that this path is heading towards healing.
- I spent decades in unawareness, and if I am honest, denial about my trauma. It took those multiple moments of bits of the trauma surfacing, memories that came back to me at 1am in bed, accidentally finding articles about trauma, loving friends seeing some of the signs of trauma in me and encouraging me to find therapy to help work through it. Oh, how I just wish I had opened this up 12 years ago, or even earlier! I will grieve that for a long time I think. But I figure if I spent those years not being aware of the impact of trauma in my life and wandering around in the darkness, there are probably many others in a similar position. I want this post to help bring a little more awareness and highlight trauma and it’s devastating effects, and hope that might help some who are reading this to look at trauma that may have happened in your own life.
Maybe as you read this post it resonated and like me 12 years ago, you have ‘seen you’ in some of what I wrote and can ‘yes’ or ‘I always wondered why I do that or feel like that’ when reading about some of the signs and symptoms of trauma. Identifying and naming trauma’s you have been through is a big step in starting to move towards healing.
I have listed here a couple of those signs and symptoms, if they are something that you can identify with then I would suggest you consider looking into beginning your own journey of discovery and naming of your trauma’s. Therapy or talking to a friend would be an amazing way to start this process. I have been in therapy for almost 5 years now and it has changed my life forever and I recommend it to any and everyone reading this! It is just so helpful to have someone consistently helping you delve through the layers of the things in life you want to work on; someone who believes in you and believes that recovery is actually possible and also is willing to ask you the hard questions when you need it, while helping you process and understand the myriad emotions and reactions you might feel. Journalling your memories of the traumatic moments you went through can also be helpful.
Some signs or symptoms of trauma:
- Lowered immunity and continual sicknesses like colds and flu
- Avoidance
- Fear of abandonment
- Tolerating abusive behaviours
- Difficulties establishing boundaries
- Craving external validation or being overly agreeable
- Feelings of shame
- Hypervigilance and an inability to let your guard down
- Trust difficulties and being unable to open up to others
- Thoughts of suicide or self harm
- Depression, anxiety, panic attacks
- Dissociation or dissociative amnesia
There are definitely many, many more effects of trauma I could list here, and people much wiser, trained and equipped in addressing trauma have written articles and books that help explain them much more but this short list gives a starting point for looking at whether you might be experiencing the effects of trauma in your own life.
Also, you may have read this as you are already part way through your own journey through trauma and if so, I just want to say you are incredibly courageous and strong to be willing to confront and seek healing! I am rooting for you as you combat and explore in vulnerability those traumatic events you have experienced. You are nothing short of a warrior!
If, like me, you are a Christian and might be simultaneously working towards recovery while trying to reconcile the brutal reality of the trauma you have been through in the light of believing in a loving God. All I can say so far is that I don’t know where I would be without my faith and trusting in God at my hardest and hopeless moments. And I can tell you I have wrestled with this and still do; at times I have been angry at God and asking how can such painful events be allowed to happen in someone’s life? I don’t fully know the answers yet and I have a lot to discover regarding this but what I have found to be true so many times is that when I felt most alone in this battle, even at my most angriest and confused, time and time again, I feel encouraged by God’s gentle voice through his word saying ‘I am here, you are not alone in this’. Psalm 94:19 says ‘When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy’. Another verse I hold onto tightly to right now is Phillipians 4:17 ‘Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus’. This is what I have found to be true when I am feeling the turbulent, intense emotions this recovery process has bought up in me, somehow, God is able to give me a peace in the midst of all this that really does go beyond my understanding of my situations and circumstances.
Wherever you are on your path, I truly desire healing, recovery and hope for you, and a peace as you confront those traumas and the intense emotions you might be feeling.
* A question you might ask yourself is did it feel like some jigsaw puzzle pieces fell into place for you while reading this article?
* Did you resonate/identify with some of the signs and symptoms of trauma? If so, there are some links for further reading below, and also it might be helpful to pursue therapy or talking to a friend/family member.
* Maybe start a trauma journal to record your memories of the traumatic events you have been through, any impacts it has caused in your life and what you learn along the way. Journalling can be a useful way to help process and reflect as you begin your recovery process.
If you are In Crisis Currently
If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, especially thoughts of suicide please use the links below to seek immediate help:
USA:
National Institute of Mental Health - https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help
UK:
NHS - https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/mental-health-services/where-to-get-urgent-help-for-mental-health/
Around the world: https://www.javajourneys.today/urgent-mental-health-contacts/
Further reading about trauma:
Good Reads
The Body Keeps the Score is a wonderful book, it has taught me a lot about how trauma impacts the body physically.
Taylor
This link takes you to an article I found helpful, describing signs of unresolved trauma you might see.
Kathy Broady
Another article with signs of unresolved trauma to watch for
