Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 10 and we’re going to talk about why your feelings are valid and real!

I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!

So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma Support Specialist with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional.

Alright let’s dive in!

So in the last episode, we talked about the ACES questionnaire, got our scores, and what that can mean for us throughout our lives. It can be a lot to take in, especially if you are just realizing if you have trauma, and investigating what it means for you. Picture throwing a stone into a pond. As it hits the water, it creates ripples that move outward from where the stone hit the water. We can think of that stone as trauma, and the ripples it creates are all of the different ways it can affect you, waving across every part of your being. Trauma affects those around us too, so those ripples expand even farther out: to our families, friends, even our environment. How we feel, react, and respond to everything as a trauma survivor is directly influenced by our experiences. As I keep saying, it is VERY personal. People’s experiences are like snowflakes, no two people will experience things in the same way. Two people can see an accident happen for instance, but how they describe it and how they tell the story of what they saw, can be very different. For instance, if you had trauma in your home as a child, and you had siblings, you all may have been present at the same time that traumatic things were going on, but you will most likely not have the same story or the same experience of it. Everyone can largely agree that traumatic events cause fear, but how each person interprets it, and how it can affect them will really differ.

This can often be true when the people that CAUSED a trauma, or traumatic events in our lives don’t validate or honor our feelings around things and situations that happened. We may confront them at some point, trying as best we can to let them know how much their behaviors and actions hurt us. They may tell us we’re crazy, it wasn’t that bad, we’re making too big a deal out of it…or they say it didn’t happen at all…

I remember when I was 6 years old, lying in bed at night listening to my parents nightly arguments, crying and scared. I had a moment where I remember saying to myself “remember this, remember the way it made you feel, remember that it was literally every night in case someday someone tells you it wasn’t true…..”  My therapists over the years had a field day with that one! Who was it that I didn’t think would believe me?

The one time I gathered up all of my courage (I was in my 30’s) to confront my dad about all of the things that had happened to us, his behavior, and how it had affected me, was something I’ll never forget. From my earliest memories, I learned that my dad wasn’t a safe person. My mom would also very often tell me “We’re not going to tell your dad about this!”  when things happened. So, we didn’t talk to him about things EVER! Mom and I had this sort of “secret keeping” thing from him. So, if I ever had to talk to him about anything, it felt like I had a lock on my vocal chords, and a clamp on my jaw keeping my mouth shut. Words would not come out, no matter what I did or how much I wanted to speak. So, I avoided any confrontation or discussion with him beyond surfacy things like the weather, or his day. So, after my mom died, several years later, I decided to write him a letter telling him how I felt. I also printed out information on childhood trauma, and CPTSD highlighting different things that had happened to me, and why I behaved the way I did. We only lived about 5 minutes from each other, but this was the depth of my fear of talking to him. I mailed the letter. It took him about 2 weeks to respond. He called me and said that he guessed we should talk about it. I met him at a local restaurant for lunch. I was armed with copies of the information I had sent him. I reminded him of just how terrified of everything I was as a kid, why I had temper tantrums, all of that awful fear and instability and how it affected me as an adult. He told me, I was a difficult child to love and that yes, he was abusive, but that’s all he knew…and that he and my mom should never have married and had children. I also brought up the night that I held my dying 6-year-old sister in my arms while my parents argued drunkenly for 2 hours as to whether or not she should go to the hospital. He said, “that never happened.” I was 13 at that time, and I remember every agonizing moment of that night. My mother had also told me that when they did finally take her to the hospital, she said her last words in the back seat of the car. She said “Mom?” and my dad told her to shut up…he also said THAT never happened. It took me a long time to come to the understanding that he most likely either was drunk enough that he didn’t remember that, or his brain shut that down as too PAINFUL to remember. That conversation we had that day, gave me no answers, no accountability on his part, no closure of any kind. I remembered back to my 6-year-old self, trying so hard to hold onto and remember my experiences…that person who wouldn’t believe me of course, was my dad. My experiences were completely invalidated by him, not acknowledging any of my pain, any of what I’d gone through. I had tried and felt deflated by the whole thing, like a flat tire.

This kind of invalidation or outright denial of our reality is a component of what makes relationships involving Intimate Partner Violence so damaging. Many times, an abusive partner will do something called “gaslighting” which is a manipulative form of abuse and control. The abusive person may say certain things never happened or that you are “crazy” or that you are lying about something that happened. It happened to me, and I remember feeling like I was losing my sanity, or that there was something really wrong with me. When we lack confidence, self-esteem, or are being manipulated, we tend to look at ourselves first as the one who MUST be at fault, right? It MUST be us! We have this distorted sense of self and our reality; we don’t trust ourselves enough to believe in who we are. We aren’t sure what or even at times HOW to feel, or what we think.

It isn’t that we need someone to constantly reassure us, but we need consistency from others. Support and understanding from others regarding our experiences. We need people to really HEAR us when we talk about things. We may not have gone through the same things that another person has, but we can have empathy and compassion for them, their feelings, and experiences. I think that’s why so many of us with trauma want to get into some kind of helping field. We learn the ability to sit with others while they are processing their experiences. I never say “I know exactly how you feel” because I don’t, I can’t know exactly what someone else has been through or experienced. What I CAN say is “I think I can understand how that might have made you feel.” So, the feelings can be acknowledged without stepping exactly into someone else’s shoes, because we don’t have that right.

Having our feelings and experiences validated, heard, and understood is extremely important in beginning to work towards healing. Having a person who hears us, builds safety, and that is so important for all of us who are trauma survivors. We need to feel safe because we’ve had experiences where we either felt or WEREN’T safe. I have had one safe adult consistently throughout my life, and that was my Aunt Janie, my dad’s younger sister, and they couldn’t have been more different! My Aunt was the one that would come pluck me up out of the craziness and chaos of my life and give me the experience of what it was like to HAVE a healthy adult around. We had fun, we did things, she taught me things. She never lived close to us, so it was sometimes only once or twice a year, but I lived for those times. I never wanted to go back home. She was the one that took me to get glasses for the first time, when I was having trouble seeing, my parents never noticed. She was the first one ever to make me my favorite kind of cookies, silly things like that, but so important! She took me to the doctor, the library, whatever I needed. She is still my best friend, still helping me and guiding me almost 60 years later…

That safety that we need, then allows us to build towards the next step, which is trust! Another big issue for those of us with a trauma history. Many of us were surrounded by people we couldn’t trust. They showed us repeatedly by their actions, responses, emotions, and lack of follow through that what they said and did, didn’t “match up” to other things they said or did. For example, your caregiver gets you all excited by saying they are planning a birthday party for you, as a kid this is big! They talk about who to invite, decorations, your cake. You wait excitedly for the day. Then just before it’s scheduled to happen, they say there’s no party, give some excuse as to why it won’t happen. You are crushed, sad, disappointed. This is a mild example and there are many kinds of things that happen to break your trust, especially as a child. There are lots of other examples, but you get the idea. Who was it in your life, that “broke” your trust? Who wasn’t there for you when you needed them? Who did you rely on to care for you and keep you safe, and they didn’t?

A lack of any stable supports when you were vulnerable leaves you just kind of “dog paddling“ through life: Just enough to keep your head above water, but not enough to really know how to swim. We’re sort of thrown out into the water, sink or swim, so our survival instincts kick in and our bodies and brains do whatever they can to keep us afloat. Those instincts within us keep us going, but sometimes not very well. We want to trust others, we want safety and validation but as we paddle through life, just staying afloat, sometimes we tell too much, give too much of ourselves to another person right away. We’re desperate to find an anchor, something we can hang onto. We don’t have any “real sense of self” often to the point of not even really having our own opinions, we will echo or agree with other’s opinions instead. I used to be that person! I would so OVERSHARE and is a trauma response!  I’d meet someone, start a basic conversation, then suddenly, my whole life story was spilling out! Some people will either listen politely, eyes getting wider as they listen, then when the conversation is over, head for the hills never to be seen again. Or some people will break into the conversation, saying they have to go, also never to be seen again! It took a lot of learning for me to “redistribute” that need, to restructure it, and just be able to have that “normal” interaction with others. For trauma survivors, “small talk” can feel very hard, it drives me crazy! But people interact with each other in layers, step by step. There has to be that kind of general “chit chat” for people to gauge each other. After that, if they find common ground, the conversation can go a bit deeper, but it’s a cautious thing. Because of my work and what I do, I’m that person now say at the grocery store that people talk to and tell things to. I say hi, talk to people, comment on how much I love the color of the shirt their wearing and next thing you know, we’re talking about life!  Give me a deep and meaningful conversation any time, anywhere, I love it! Lots of trauma survivors are givers, we feel better when we’re giving or doing for other, and that’s perfectly okay. We just have to learn to put the breaks on a bit, and not leave ourselves so wide open! We have to find that fine line between self-protection and the giving of ourselves. It is hard wired into our DNA to be with others, to connect. That’s how a species survives, and human beings are a species. We need to be able to trust our “gut,“ to trust our instincts, when it tells us things. That voice inside of us that we all have telling us to be careful, to tread lightly. We need to believe in ourselves, trust ourselves, before we can trust others. We need to validate our own experiences, know that what happened to us HAPPENED, how it affected us and made us feel is real! We can’t change what happened, or how it impacted us, but we’re learning that trauma doesn’t have to be a “life sentence.” We can make changes now, real lasting change! We learn new things, new ways of thinking and processing what happens now, TODAY! We can re-direct those instincts, channel our energies, quit dog paddling, and learn to really swim!

So, this is where I like to close us out with a new exercise that we can add to that “mindfulness” toolbox we’re building together! Remember, you don’t have to do this now, or at all if you don’t want to, but you might just listen and tuck it away in your mind for future reference.

This exercise will help you take that baby step forward, to begin to identify what makes you, YOU! Yes incredible, wonderful YOU!

Let’s try and identify what some core values are that you hold. You can either do this in your mind, or write or type these out as you think of things. I would like to invite you to write if you can.

1.)    Who do you admire? Think of a positive role model you may have had, or it could be someone famous, a character in a book, a neighbor, anyone who has qualities or things about them that you like. As you think about this person/people/character:

What is it about them that inspires you?

What qualities do they have that you like?

What kind of behaviors and qualities do they have, that YOU’D like to have?

2.)    When do you feel the most like yourself? What’s going on? Write down:

Who you’re with.

What activities are going on?

Where are you?

What positive feelings or thoughts come up for you during these times?

3.)    Next, I’d like you to write down 3 core values that you know to be true about yourself. These are things that you know deep down that you believe in. When we are acting outside of or against these truths that we hold within ourselves, we can feel alone, unsettled, and anxious. If you need help, look up a list online for examples of core values.

Three core values that I hold are: Compassion, empathy, and love.

Once you’ve identified your three, think a bit on how they shape who you are and how important they are in your life.

4.)    Finally, try and think of one action for each core value, that you could begin to bring into your life regularly so that you can live more truly in alignment with what YOU think and feel, and not how others think and feel. Could you add 1% of something per day? 1% per day is about 14 minutes!

Remember, you don’t need to think, say, and go along with what anyone else does, your voice, your choice, your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and opinions matter just as much as anyone else’s does, truly, it MATTERS, YOU MATTER!

I hope these exercises are something you found helpful, and it’s more tools to add to our “mindful” toolbox that we’re building together. Whenever you need to go to that toolbox and pull out any skill we’ve learned in order to feel more grounded, safe, and connected, do it!! I have created a list of all of the techniques and exercises we’ve learned on my website invisiblewoundshealingfromtrauma.com and will add to it as we go along. I’m also going to begin demonstrating all of the skills, and techniques, and adding related content on my YouTube Channel Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma!

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen today, and please keep on listening! Wherever you listen, please like, subscribe, favorite, and follow me! What you think really matters to me too, so comment on the show, what you think, whatever’s on your mind. You can find me on Facebook at Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma, Twitter at Kerriwalker58, and my websites invisiblewoundshealingfromtrauma.com and enddvnow.com

Look for my new episodes dropping every Monday on all of your favorite podcast and listening apps!

Please take extra good care of yourself, and we’ll talk soon!