We Do Therapy: What Do We Do Now?
Therapy Lesson #10: Living with Grief, Grace, and Gratitude
In the introductory posts to this weekly, We Do Therapy series (available to paid subscribers). Scott and I shared both the struggles and triumphs of two young adults who believed they had found someone who would care for them. Our intent in the initial posts and this series of Therapy Lessons is not to offer marriage advice. We are not licensed therapists. We are survivors who hope that what we share about our journey together will help others to be curious about how trauma might be impacting their marriage. Hopefully, far sooner than we did! (Please read the statement at the end of this post.)
Therapy Lesson #10: Living with Grief, Grace, and Gratitude
If Scott and I could say one thing to young couples who are aware that they have been impacted by trauma, it would be to seek professional help. There are a couple of challenges that come with this advice.
How do we know we are impacted by trauma?
This is the exact question that led me to write the Purple Elephant Trauma Series (located here). The first two posts will answer this question. (Exploring Trauma & Exploring Adverse Childhood Experiences)
What if we understand we were impacted by trauma but seem to be fine?
(Scott said, “Nice try!” when I read that to him)
That is the trickiest part of being impacted by trauma. Sometimes we might be in denial that we are affected, but other times, we simply don’t recognize it. One we feel like we always felt. What we always believed about ourselves or others feels true. It all seems normal. Chances are, you may not even know what it would feel like to have a regulated nervous system. (This is discussed in Exploring Regulation & Resilience.)
One of the most difficult things about the impact of childhood trauma is that most of us who are impacted are fantastic survivors and when we reach young adulthood, we are convinced we can overcome what happened to us. Scott and I were convinced we would not be like those who harmed us. We set off into marriage not understanding that yes, we could be better—do better—but that did not mean we could be the best versions of ourselves. Not by a long shot.
When the trauma will take its greatest toll is around the age of 40. I see this happen again and again. It was certainly true for us. We both patched ourselves together the best we could, began taking meds, and finished raising our family. Then we collapsed completely as we reached our 60s.
If you know you experienced significant trauma (see Exploring Adverse Childhood Experiences), it will catch up with you eventually. Even if you hold it together (for many of my readers that means clinging to spirituality to solve the problem) it will impact your life.
This brings us to the first word . . .
Grief
While Scott and I do experience grief over the harm done to us as children, our greatest grief is realizing all the ways it impacted our life together.
Some of our decisions were based on the impact of our trauma. This included both choices to do some things and not do others. We missed out on a lot.
The powerlessness that plagued us and resulted in staying in situations we should have left. This grief showed up in Trauma in the Pews when I said, “Survivors generally stay to be hurt another day. They only leave when the damage is so devastating that it is impossible to stay. Or they are dismissed.”
Greatest of all is the understanding that while we were good parents for the most part, the trauma caused us to not always be emotionally present when our children needed us.
For all these reasons, we say, “Get help before it is crushingly apparent that you need it.”
That brings me to the second word:
Grace
Scott and I have learned that most of the ways that we angered, irritated, or triggered each other were the result of the trauma we experienced. While there is grief in that, moving forward, we can now have grace for each other. Healing never completely removes the impact of childhood trauma (see the next post in the Purple Elephant series). It will take the power from the memories and this allows us to access self-regulation—most of the time. In the moments when we are dysregulated, we are far more likely to show each other grace.
This brings me to the final word:
Gratitude
We are grateful that we made it. Not a single therapist we know or have worked with would have placed a bet on two people with as severe a trauma history as our making it to a 45th anniversary. We know what that required and we are thankful that we were able to access the help we needed to get here. Some of the unhelpful help along the way nearly did us in, but there were enough who cared about us without understanding the stories we hid. We are grateful for them also.
We are also grateful for our adult children who understand their stories better now that they know ours. The idea that children will reject parents who tell about their trauma is one of the biggest hindrances to healing. Sadly, that happens sometimes, but it is worth the risk. There are appropriate ages to do this, but we are in this together. This is how we stop generational trauma.
I wish that I could have had important conversations with my parents before they passed. The clues that my dad did share were essential. I am grateful for the time I had with him. Not all parents are willing to talk. They have never felt safe telling their stories, were told not to tell them, and are often laden with guilt and shame because they have never resolved what happened to them. We end up with little pieces of the story that formed them and in our case that had to be enough. We are grateful for the clues they dropped.
For now, this post concludes the We Do Therapy series. It will return in some form at a future date. We intended to do more videos but life got in the way so we will plan to do that occasionally. There are other ideas percolating. . .
Ending with gratitude seems appropriate as we head into the Christmas season. For many childhood trauma survivors, Christmas is as complicated as anything can possibly get. We have had a spot of illness at our house that has derailed preparations so we are going to be grateful for whatever the day brings!
Tomorrow I will share our favorite Christmas memory!
Please Note! Scott and I do not believe that every marriage can or should be salvaged, especially when the interactions are abusive. Both partners must be willing to do the deeply vulnerable work of healing. The emphasis of We Do Therapy is how we both worked to heal individually and then heal the ways that trauma had impacted our marriage. We do not believe this would have happened without professional trauma-based therapy.