CoffeeTime: “IGNORE IT AND IT’LL GO AWAY”

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If we are talking about your teeth, yep, that’s true. Just totally ignore them, and you have a pretty quick way to rid yourself of a tiresome repetitive responsibility. “She don’t care about us, and always wishin’ that we weren’t so needy all the time? Oh, yeah, we’re outta here! We may leave one by one, but we’re all leavin,’ sooner or later.”

But emotional trauma? No way.

There are way too many families that seem to believe that if they ignore the painful “it,” the trauma will go away. But usually the opposite happens. Granted, conversation about “it” may stop, but “it” is still there. It simply goes underground, like ugly unwanted plants that over a period of time begin putting out tiny roots. Roots that sooner or later, will grow and likely produce offspring that can make the original “it” seem like a walk in springtime.

When an unfortunate incident happens, too often the ones who are most affected refuse to ever consider talking about it. Because talking means reliving that painful memory, and that is the last thing they want to do. Hoping it will just disappear from their lives, they try to just turn their back and walk away. Mentally and emotionally.  

But emotional trauma and pain that are left to go underground have a way of reappearing later in life. Often reappearing in the form of rebellion, misunderstood anger, isolation from loved ones, crime, or questionable sexual behavior. Like I said, a walk in the springtime a few years before.

Unaddressed trauma changes lives, period. And never for the better. And I am not speaking of just the person who experienced the original pain. Here’s why.

Every life touches other lives. And if a life has been lived saturated in emotional pain, then that person can’t help but have their relationships affected by their trauma. And this is especially true for the parent-child relationship.

Emotional input into the life of a child creates a permanent impression on that child’s life. And if that input is stained by second-hand trauma that has never been resolved, then the effect is very real and very unfortunate. And if that child’s trauma stays unresolved, then it can easily be passed down to the next generation. In an ongoing generational chain of pain.

Until someone has the guts to decide that “It” stops with me, and seeks the help that the family has been needing for so long. Then the chain of pain can be broken.

Have the courage to speak up and stop the hurt. Like my husband says, “It’s bad enough to fall headfirst into a mudhole, but it’s a whole lot worse to just lay there.”