# Recognizing the Key Sign of Trauma Recovery: A Guide
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Chapter 1: Understanding Trauma and Emotional Numbness
The renowned physician Gabor Maté articulates a vital truth: "Trauma teaches us to fear our feelings rather than feel them because confronting those feelings can seem perilous." Many individuals who endure neglect, abuse, or abandonment during childhood might find that acknowledging their profound despair could lead them to thoughts of self-harm. Thus, the dissociation often associated with trauma acts as a protective mechanism.
Consider a story shared by someone reflecting on a childhood memory of playing Legos with a friend. During their play, he noticed his friend was visibly upset and crying. When he inquired about his friend’s distress, the reply was, “Your parents are fighting, and it scares me.” This experience highlights how early on, he learned to suppress his feelings, adapting to a chaotic environment that desensitized him to emotional turmoil. Such narratives are all too common among many clients I have encountered.
As Lori Gottlieb notes, “People often confuse numbness with emptiness, but numbness is a reaction to being overwhelmed by emotions.”
Turning Off Our Feelings
Emotions are crucial for our mental well-being. Just as a toothache signals a need for attention, our negative feelings indicate unmet emotional needs. Regrettably, many learn early in life that their caregivers cannot fulfill these needs, leading them to become experts in shutting down their emotions.
One individual recounted a time when a thunderstorm terrified her as a child. Seeking comfort, she rushed to her grandmother, but once she realized her parents were home and her grandmother had left, she retreated back to bed. She recognized that her parents might not only fail to comfort her but could also react negatively to her fear. Thus, she learned to suppress her emotions, viewing them as a greater danger than the feelings themselves.
This leads to a desensitization to the toxicity of their surroundings and the persistent unmet needs. While they may appear to manage their feelings on a conscious level, the truth is that these feelings have been buried deep within all along.
Removing the battery from a smoke detector doesn’t extinguish a fire.
Healing From Trauma
- Scott Peck once characterized mental illness as the avoidance of reality at any cost, while mental health is found in accepting reality, regardless of the cost. Healing from the complex impacts of trauma is not merely about acceptance; it’s a more nuanced journey that involves understanding our emotional landscape.
When we experience triggers or become overwhelmed, our nervous systems may become dysregulated, disrupting our ability to think, feel, remember, and communicate effectively. This fragmentation is a common consequence of trauma.
To heal, we must reintegrate the parts of ourselves that have been scattered in response to past emotional storms. While there are numerous excellent resources available on trauma recovery, my focus here is on those who have engaged deeply in various healing modalities—therapy, somatic practices, inner-child work, and more—yet still find themselves questioning when the healing journey will conclude.
The timeline for healing often has less to do with the amount of effort put in than one might assume. Some individuals might invest heavily in therapy for years and still struggle with unresolved trauma.
The #1 Sign of Healing From Trauma
Returning to the core message of this discussion, if trauma necessitates the avoidance of emotions, a clear indication that you are healing is the ability to reconnect with those emotions. Importantly, it's essential to differentiate between feeling and emoting. While expressing feelings (emoting) is significant, it’s possible to display emotions without truly experiencing them.
Feeling your feelings involves allowing emotions to surface and simply being present with them. This means not attempting to change, judge, or escape them, but instead welcoming them as guests and exploring them deeply.
Consider these reflective questions when you encounter emotions:
- Where do you sense this feeling in your body?
- Can you name this emotion?
- Have you felt this way before?
- What message does this feeling convey?
- What triggered this emotional response?
- What narratives have you constructed around this feeling?
- Is there an unmet need tied to this emotion?
The ability to fully experience, identify, and communicate your feelings in a healthy manner is a significant milestone in the healing process.
The #1 Sign of Unresolved Trauma
Compulsive behaviors often serve as a strong indicator of unresolved trauma. Assessing your ability to be present with your feelings can illuminate your healing journey. Are you someone who distracts themselves with work, or avoids vulnerability through various means? Do you fill your life with distractions, fearing moments of stillness?
A lack of time to process emotions is rarely coincidental. As Pete Walker wisely stated, “The quality of our emotional intelligence is reflected in how well we accept our feelings without dissociating or expressing them in harmful ways.”
Healing from trauma is fundamentally about creating a safe space to feel once more.
Adam Murauskas is a relationship coach and a Medium top writer. In 2019, he and his wife Rebecca left their careers to pursue their passion for helping others heal. For more insights, take a free relationship quiz at FixYourPicker.com or follow them on Instagram @fixyourpicker.
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