Trauma Recovery and Happiness

Maybe you couldn’t be happy growing up. Maybe certain ugly experiences took joy, took love, and made you feel happiness was for others. But I want to remind you, it’s available to us all.

I get it, the world feels heavy, with abuse, injustice, oppression, hate, violence, and it’s hard to believe joy that does come. That it comes to you, why you? But it belongs to all of us.

Just a reminder you don’t have to suppress joy.

Why do we do it though?

Worried we can’t be too happy when you know others aren’t?

We should be sad because there is war?

We shouldn’t be joyful because your sister or sibling or parent is struggling?

Because you just walked by a homeless individual? Or read a story of tragedy?

These things can jolt sadness down our spines. We’re going to be sad, it’s inevitable — we want the best for people. But, we can also make life joyful despite the harsh realities of the world we live in.

We can lend a hand, do what we can and we can have compassion for all the pain and suffering in the world without sabotaging our own lives.

I’m getting to a point where it’s like I literally spent the first 19 years of my life dealing with sexual and physical abuse, foster care related issues and pain that I’m finally untangling from this notion that we’re not allowed to be happy. Or the body doesn’t understand it so I’m actively teaching it.

As a social worker walking the halls seeing burned out workers, sad children, laughing felt like betrayal, felt ugly. It was an environment that often felt dark and lonely.

And it’s taken me awhile to pull apart guilt and even shame from joy. Why should we feel guilt or shame when we feel joy?

For many of us who’ve experienced traumatic upbringings, shame can comes up with a lot of things but boy does it scream when joy is present. Some survivors can often feel the responsibility to be the peacemaker and people pleaser leading to ensuring everyone around them are okay, regardless of whether they are. Sometimes to a point of masking our pain with fake smiles and pretend, “I'm goods.” That if others are sad, they are too. 

For some of us, this way of operating was created because we grew up in a family of predatory and/or violent and out of control parent(s), which led to fearful hypervigilant states and walking on eggshells and being careful to not set anyone off.

There was/is nothing wrong with this emotional state, this was our brains adaptive way of protecting you, this was survival mode and you know longer need to operate here. If you still feel this deeply as an adult, It’s time to really work on creating a sense of safety. And know there is nothing wrong with you if these things come back up here and there when you feel unsafe.

Begin — again.

I’m tired of this narrative that you are either “healed” or “unhealed” or “living with unhealed trauma.” We’re all at the same time. It’s a continuous working process where we ebb back and forth between old ways of operating and new ones. Because life can feel unsafe sometimes. And if you are here, it means you ARE doing the work. It’s exhausting, I know, but you are growing, you are healing, even here.

For me, having to always be on guard, left me with deep despair, where happiness was rare. And for some of us, the times where joy was present, abuse loomed over.

Joy was so short-lived that it never had a chance to create positive circuits in the brain.

Trauma can make us believe we don’t deserve great things. Trauma can make us feel unworthy of love and connection, positive experiences and happiness. Trauma is a climate of violence that leaves its own legacy and often this feeling of: joy isn’t meant for you.

But joy is meant for us all. It belongs to everyone. We can still experience the other side of the human condition. Joy. Laughter. Love.

You are allowed to be happy. Like really really happy.

I’m always actively working on this.

I struggle when I see people struggle. I hurt when others hurt. Growing up as a people pleaser, peacemaker, and being a prime leaned on shoulder for people’s suffering, It’s difficult to step away from those roles. And I don’t mean, don’t care. I mean, to not let that be all of you — to not let that be all of you to the point you don’t help yourself, be there for yourself, do things you want to do. To not let others dictate how you live your life. To not let the suffering around you suffocate you.

Survivors of child abuse know this deeply. How living doesn’t even feel authentic. But fuck, living is the blessing we are all designed for. We all belong just as we are. We all deserve joy.

Dear survivor, you deserve a life of joy. Of such intense joy you fall to your knees, cry on mountains as you look at earth’s magnificent views, hug your loved ones harder, and smile while walking down the street because, god damn, you survived! 

So go out there and experience. Lean in. Love. Play. Create. Be. And experiences the joy oh so deeply.

Hugs,

Kellie