Things I wish someone had shared with me about surviving trauma — Part Four by Faria S. Rehman for TraumaVenture
By: Traumaventure Cecilia M Cardesa
Tags: PTSD, Trauma, Mental Health

This is part of a continuing five-part series that explores the intersection of personal storytelling, PTSD, and coming to terms with life after trauma. The goal is to explore the universality of trauma experiences and realize that one is not as alone as it may seem in their experiences.

You don’t have to become a poster child for trauma.

It took me a few months to come to terms with my Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder diagnosis. But, once I did, I talked about it constantly. I talked about the symptoms I experienced, and the way my trauma made me feel, and how certain events could be surprisingly triggering, and how my healing journey was going. I was (and still am) lucky enough to have a close-knit group of friends and family who would listen to me and mourn with me and cry with me and hold my hand, and who would also distract me from my pain with rom coms and coffee dates and shopping trips. However, it got to the point where I would talk about my trauma with anyone and everyone. My experiences with trauma would pop up in the most normal, ordinary conversations about school or summer plans. It wove its way into every conversation, and for a while, I wore it as a sort of twisted badge of honor.

I felt the need to be so open and loud about my trauma because I felt like I had the responsibility to show to those around me that someone could still have trauma and be just like everyone else. When I grew up, I thought that the main segment of the population who was diagnosed with PTSD were those who went to war. Once I realized that there are millions of normal people like me who could have trauma and still be multifaceted people with different hobbies, interests, relationships, and careers, and who weren’t war veterans, I felt like I had to share this piece of information with every single person I knew. I felt like I had to be an example of how someone could be a happy-go-lucky, successful person with healthy relationships and a very interesting, exciting life who could have still gone through something traumatic. I employed myself with the unpaid job of being the poster child for surviving trauma.

The notion of a ‘poster child’ is something that often falls upon those who identify as being a part of a minority group. Minority identities are often assigned heavy stereotypes that can become embedded in mainstream society as truth. When one is a part of a minority, there can be a pressure to use one’s voice to speak on behalf of the entire minority group, in order to promote a positive image and work towards shedding harmful stereotypes. For example, I identify as an Asian-American. Growing up, the idea of the model minority plagued how people viewed me, so I often felt a responsibility to act like the complete opposite of the model minority in order to prove to people that all Asians aren’t shy, meek, submissive, non-confrontational hard workers. I acted larger-than-life and loud in order to prove this point, when that isn’t even how my personality is. I also identify as Muslim-American. When I first began exploring a career in politics, human rights, and social justice, I interned in the national security branch of a NGO, and even attended a Guantanamo Bay hearing for one of their high-profile prisoners. I had never previously considered a path in national security; but, part of me felt that by being a Muslim-American woman pursuing a career in national security, people would see that Muslims aren’t a security threat and that through my work I would widen the lens by which people saw my community.

I fell into this same pattern of behavior when it came to my PTSD diagnosis. Growing up, I was extremely uneducated on trauma. When I thought of trauma, I thought of movie scenes where I would see ex-soldiers jump at loud noises or attack unexpected guests because of experiences from war. I thought of hyper-dramatized depictions of people who are unable to piece their lives together and who are in a near vegetative state because they are so overwhelmed by flashbacks and detached from reality. I didn’t think of people who could be students, or people who could even hold down a job. When I thought of trauma, I thought of people who would always be victims.

Instead of analyzing and reworking this internalized discrimination towards mental illness, I jumped into a panicked mode, where I figured everyone thought like me and also thought the worst of the worst about people with trauma. My solution to this was to tell everyone about my trauma, while also showing them that I was a hard worker, a dedicated student, a leader, a fun person, and, well, every other positive adjective under the sun. This responsibility I put on myself to single-handedly break stereotypes was exhausting. I was trying to act like someone who was perfectly fine and not traumatized while also talking about my trauma to prove to everyone that people with trauma were normal. In retrospect, this logic is so skewed.

A few days ago, a close friend of mine said something to me that really resonated. She said that when we hurt, if we do not give ourselves time to process, think, and heal, we are not respecting ourselves. When I became obsessed with telling everyone else about my trauma, and focused on how they thought of me, and thus equated that with how they thought about everyone with trauma, I was only hurting myself further. I was being extremely disrespectful to my mind and body.

I was holding myself up to an unrealistic standard of perfection that I had created in my head. I was measuring my healing through the lens of how other people considered how healed I was, rather than how I actually felt. I willingly placed a burden on myself because I didn’t want others with trauma to be viewed poorly. The general good intentions were there, but the idea itself was executed horribly.

Today, I’ve learned that the best way to break preconceived notions about trauma is to hold space. Hold space for others to share their stories, and hold space for you to share your own story. But most importantly, hold space for yourself to fail. It’s okay to feel sad and confused and angry and upset on your healing journey — that’s normal. Take time to lick your wounds, and with time, comes clarity, and with clarity, more healing takes place.

Don’t be afraid of other people seeing you fail, either. When I was first diagnosed with PTSD, I was so afraid of people seeing me have a bad day, because I thought they would chalk it up to trauma and thus then only consider me the result of the traumatic event that happened to me. But here’s the secret: no one likes someone who is perfect, or who at least tries to be perfect. Failure is a key part of being human, and failing openly and loudly and without regret reminds others that you are human. When we let each other fail, and lift each other up afterwards, we build the path towards growth, healing, and connection for all of us.