155: Trauma When You Should Be Fine
Hi everyone, today’s episode is a little bit different because it’s not really dealing with the death of your child, but with the trauma you might have. And not from the trauma you might have from your child’s death, but other death.
Before we dive in, I made a free video just for you, if you’re feeling stuck, like you’ll never stop being in pain, and you just want to get out. Maybe you’re wondering when things will ever get better, if they ever will, go watch this video. It’s free, it’s on my website www.meganhillukka.com it’s just a few minutes, and I will share with you the number one thing to help you when you’re cycling, or in so much pain and you want to get out of pain.
And- one more thing. My in person retreat is coming up in October, and it’s going to be amazing. It’s for grieving mothers who want to make space for grief, because they want to learn to live again. It’s for moms who want to connect with others walking a similar path and learn how to process and feel your emotions in person. I’ll be there, and everything will be provided for you, lodging, food, activities, everything. You just show up. I can’t wait for you, to join, and experience this retreat, because you deserve it, after all you’ve been through, you of all people deserve this time. The early bird pricing is going away the end of August, so if you want it, act now, and get your room at early bird pricing, to see what’s left, go to www.meganhillukka.com/retreat
So- today’s topic. Trauma.
This is not the trauma that happens when your child dies, because that’s more understandable. Like it makes sense to others because you’ve lived through something so horrific, that of course you are anxious, afraid, terrified, fearful right?
The trauma I want to focus on today is trauma like maybe things that happened in your childhood. Or things that happened way in the past that you’ve tried to just forget and move on. Maybe you were in a very scary accident that everyone survived and is fine. Maybe your child or someone you loved almost drowned but they didn’t.
Maybe you’ve had a traumatic experience with childbirth, and with that particular birth your baby survived, and so did you, and everyone is okay, except for when you’re not.
Except for when everything is calm, safe, and normal around you, and you’re not okay, not calm, not safe, and definitely not the same.
This kind of trauma is so minimized, because everything seems to be okay. You’re alive right? Your baby is alive right? Or that happened so long ago, let it go, right? It’s actually also minimized by people who have had their child die, or who have experienced the same experience as you, except in the end, like many of you listening on here, we aren’t at home all safe and sound. We ended up with dead children.
But this trauma filters your whole life. Who do you trust? What is safe? What is not safe? Can you trust yourself? Can you trust your decisions? What’s a threat and what’s not? How do I even know what’s true and not true?
You start to spin inside your mind and feel so out of control.
This, my friends, is trauma. Think of it as the lens in which you look through the world. When you experience something, when you see something happen, you are watching and living it through this lens of trauma. This doesn’t go away by itself. Even when everything is fine, or it happened a long time ago, you cannot just shove it under a rug and try to live your life like normal.
If you went through a traumatic event, and are living with the aftermath of trauma, your body started the trauma cycle. Your body was gearing up to protect you, to fight, to freeze, to do whatever it needed to do in the horrific moment. If you thought your baby died and it didn’t, your body still went through the experience like your baby died.
If you try to just move on from a sexual assualt or abuse that happened in your childhood, because your older, and you should be over it by now, guess what, your body is not.
Your body does not forget.
Even if you try to forget with your mind, your body does not.
There is nothing wrong with you and you are not broken. This is what can make this whole experience more challenging is that other people can’t understand why you are still living this way. Why are you still terrified? Why do you have so much fear still, and the answer is, even if you know logically you’re okay, your body does not. There is nothing you can do to think or talk your way out of this.
There is no amount of talking or ignoring that can override your human innate reactions and responses that you don’t have any control over.
It’s when you actually deal with the trauma that everything can change.
What if I told you, that the anxiety you feel every moment, or the fear you’ve been living with for the last 10 years, or the constant on edge feel, or the checking on your husband all night long terrified he will die in his sleep like I did, or the family vacations that are ruined by your anxiety. What if I told you that could not exist?
Like most of the time we try to learn how to cope with the anxiety, or cope with the trauma, or learn ways to live with the trauma.
But what if, like you wouldn’t even think about it?
I will bring up my example from my own trauma, even though mine was from Aria’s death and not an experience where everything turned out safe and sound. For me, I was terrified of checking on my sleeping children. My heart would pound, I would feel faint, I knew I was going to find another dead child. I didn’t want to check on them, but I had to, because I had to know if they were okay or not. I battled my mind, it built up in my body, and finally after I checked on them, which in itself was intense because they didn’t breath fast enough for me and for sure they weren’t breathing, whew, by the time I was done, I was shaking, exhausted, and relieved that they were okay.
But what if, I took off that lens of trauma, and it didn’t even come up anymore.
For me, this is true. I go check on my kids, and if I’m in a more anxious state, I might worry a bit more, but it’s nothing like it was. Absolutely nothing like it. I don’t panic in my body, I don’t feel it in my body at all. I can check on them. They can not breathe in for a bit and I don’t panic. It might cross my mind that it’s possible to find another dead child but I don’t KNOW it like I did before.
What if, the terror, panic, fear, anxiety, were not even in existence in your life anymore? What if they could disappear?
You might not believe me right now, but I promise you they can. I promise you don’t have to continue to live with those every day, and it doesn’t matter if the trauma is from your childhood, or in recent days, trauma is trauma, and it doesn’t matter what caused it, what matters right now is how it affects your life, and how detrimental it is to your life.
The longer you put off healing the trauma, the longer you live with it, and the worse it can get.
The quicker you begin to heal, the quicker you can take that lens of trauma off.
I think often, about if I wouldn’t have gotten help immediately for my trauma. Because I immediately got help, I shortened the time I had to live in horrific terror like that. I was able to get the help I needed and heal the trauma within 1 year. That changed my life and my ability to grieve.
If I wouldn’t have gotten help, well, I can’t imagine living in that kind of horror for so long. It’s horrific, so please do everything you can to get the help you need.
Don’t let busyness, don’t let money, don’t let not knowing where to go or how to get help stop you. Imagine what your life would be like without that trauma, and go get the help.
I’ll just quickly give you a few ideas here on how to get help for trauma, please don’t hesitate and wait. You push it off another day, another day you have to live with the trauma and it could be healed.
So- EMDR, this is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. Amazing. I did this and I’m forever grateful for it. I went twice a week for about 8 months. It was my full time job. It’s no joke but so so worth it. I’m so grateful to my past self who took care of me in that way so today I can live without trauma.
Somatic experiencing, this is a treatment created by Dr. Peter LeVine that helps you learn to feel the felt sense in your body, and eventually finish the trauma response cycle that your body is stuck in.
And finally, I do mindfulness practices and tapping that are shown to help with trauma, and so if you want to do 1:1 work feel free to message me, and we could work together to ground and calm your body. Or, if you want to try doing these things on your own and in your own time, you can join Grieving Moms Haven and there are many tapping meditations and breath work and such inside there that can help you.
Whatever you do, please don’t put your healing off. This is not something you can talk through, this is not something you can ignore, this is not something that will just get better with time. Please get the help in whatever way you decide…just don’t put it off.
You deserve to be well, and the people around you deserve to have you well. And the real part is, it’s possible.
All my love, I’ll chat next week!
Are you ready to stop cycling in the pain and anguish of grief? What if you could get a moment of calm and respite? After your child dies, everything feels hopeless, dark, and it’s hard to even think straight. Staying in survival mode keeps the cycle going.
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