It was the weekend I made big, bold actions on the outer plane of my life to begin my relational trauma recovery journey on the inner plane.
(Though, let’s be real, I didn’t know to call it that at the time; I was simply, somewhat desperately moving towards something – anything! – that felt better than the life I was living at the time.)
As this 16-year anniversary rolled around, I was reflecting on my 25-year-old self – her boldness, her desperation, her magical thinking, her moxie – and wondering what I would tell her with the perspective and lived experience I have at age 41.
So today’s essay is a list of 16 things I wish I’d known about relational trauma recovery at age 25.
It’s the essay I wish my 25-year-old self would have been able to find online to help calibrate her expectations, supply some hope, and provide a bit of a roadmap for the massive internal and external journey she was about to embark on.
I truly hope it resonates with you no matter where you find yourself on your own relational trauma recovery journey.
16 Things About Relational Trauma Recovery I Wish I’d Known 16 Years Ago
- You’re not broken. All that’s going on for you is a constellation of symptoms related to what happened to you in the past. Your symptoms tell the story of hard things that happened to you. That’s all. You’re not broken. You’re not “crazy.” You’re responding appropriately to the crappy circumstances you lived through, even if you can’t consciously remember them all.
- You DID actually experience childhood trauma. It just doesn’t look like what the media or society (at that time) says “counts” as childhood trauma. But it IS trauma. It is relational trauma. Trauma is a subjective experience, and being raised by mood- and personality-disordered parents can contribute to this. Your pain is legitimate, and the impacts of your past are profound. Don’t let yourself or others dismiss or diminish your reality.
- It is entirely possible to be high-functioning and still have unresolved relational trauma symptoms at play. The two things are not mutually exclusive. And sometimes, being so “high-functioning” with those Ivy League degrees and good job prospects cloaks and disguises the very real need to seek out high-quality mental healthcare. Don’t fool yourself by thinking that you don’t need help just because, on paper, things look good. And do the work sooner than later before the cumulative responsibilities of the 30s and 40s reveal the cracks in the proverbial foundations of your psyche even more.
