Chapter 5: Disconnecting From The Pain

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again. ~ Maya Angelou

A solution is often the very thing we look for during trauma. When distress hits we need a way out of it. We need a way for it to stop happening. There is a need for certainty, a need for defending ourselves, and a need to stop it for good. Because of this powerlessness, helplessness, and our internal thought system we can exist on this repeated loop that can feel endless.

There are days and weeks of highs and lows that follow on from flashbacks, destructive behaviours, or present-day triggers.

When the trauma begins in childhood we are also growing up and learning how the world works. For a lot of us, we learn how to respond when that dreaded loop starts knocking. In life, it isn’t an education we look for but we are handed a life lesson that can be both defining and destructive.

For a lot of people, there is the belief that trauma exists solely in the mind. It is a thought system or just a mental health issue. After reading “The Body Keeps the Score”, we have to understand that trauma also exists in the body. In fact, I believe trauma affects the mind, body, and soul but I will explain that at another time.

Because of its effect, it's like there is a hole inside of us. Following on from trauma, this hole just stays there. Every other experience we encounter in life relates to this hole in some way. It can consume the good times that come our way. It can eat away at the excitement or the joy we might feel. And if bad times come along, or painful memories give us a reminder, the hole will widen or strengthen in depth.

As it widens or strengthens in depth the hole’s edge can often be felt. This can be from shame, loss, a flashback, a social encounter gone wrong, an anxious moment, or an unexpected revelation about ourselves or others. As the edge widens, it connects us to its existence either for a moment, for a day, or for a lifetime. We feel its edge in our body.

While I’m describing it as a hole what I am really talking about is pain.

We feel pain as it builds, deepens, or strengthens. We can feel the edge of it and fear experiencing it in its entirety. It is in our bodies where we feel this pain because that is often where it lies.

When our body usually feels pain or gets an external wound, to heal we put a plaster on it. That’s something we learned as children. We don’t leave it open for the whole world to see, we cover it up to stop it from getting worse or getting infected. And so we put a plaster on trauma, only the pain is internal.

We cover it, we fill it, we push it down, and we numb it. We counteract the pain with anything that we feel will get rid of what we have felt. In these moments this is our solution.

Just like the children we once were, we have carefully placed a plaster on the pain and we no longer have to see it or feel it. We do this as repetitively as the pain comes. As repetitive as the loop we find ourselves in revolves.

But sometimes putting a plaster on this painful loop can easily become a habit that can grow into an addiction. The pain keeps on coming back and so the need to disconnect becomes stronger, more urgent, and more repetitive. It can often be our only solution or need when the pain comes. We successfully put a plaster on the pain but sometimes the world can only see the plaster we put on and never what’s underneath it. A familiar plaster we use is drugs.

I watched Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy on Netflix which took a detailed look at the war on drugs of America in the 1980s. Crack addiction was seen as a huge socioeconomic problem and Ronald Reagan announced a war on drugs. This meant tougher sentences for crack addicts and dealers who were “corrupting the streets of America”.

The painful part watching this was the obvious pain both the drug addicts and dealers were in. For a lot of men and women they grew up in poverty. They grew up in trauma. Crack was their escape. In my opinion, the only difference between the addict and the dealer was that the dealers were trying to find external freedom while the addicts were trying to find their internal one.

It's easy at this point to think I’m solely talking about plastering the pain with alcohol or drugs. Yes, these are the most obvious and well publicised but they are not the only two.

Somebody asked me once “What is your vice? Is it sex, money, alcohol or drugs?” I said it is none of these.

When I was younger I used food and TV to disconnect from my pain. This didn’t mean I did not feel the pain that people numb with alcohol or drugs. It meant that my pain was hidden, demeaned, and unnoticed. I would use food to fill the hole I had inside. I never knew what being full felt like. I was on a loop of self-loathing through the constant food I was eating and the weight I would put on. I ate to stop feeling. People would often see the weight I gained but never knew the reason.

TV was another means of escape. I could lose myself into the fantasy of TV rather than face the reality of my current life. It afforded me the opportunity to dream, fantasise, and disconnect through the lives of my favourite TV characters . On the outside, people would only focus on the “laziness” but inside I was hurting.

As you can see, we can use many things to disconnect, cover up or push down the pain. And then we can slip into a habit and then develop a lifestyle around it to disconnect us further from the cause.

Disconnection can often leave us feeling absent. Imagine going for a run but along this run there is no end in sight but also very little memory of where we started running from or even why we started. The only thing present is this sole drive to just keep running. The danger is behind us but safety has no destination. We are neither lost or found. We just keep running.

Compassion exists in understanding the pain that sits underneath the plaster. It should be understood that I am not suggesting we numb our pain but understand that pain is the reason why we numb. Life has been defined as painful for those who choose to disconnect from it. That is to be understood before we condemn the choice we make to numb it. But we are less likely to numb if we gave attention to both the pain and its causes.

As those who experience trauma in their childhood, we may lose ourselves to the idea that the solution to our pain is in the plaster. However, we may ultimately find ourselves if we understand with compassion that the solution is found in the healing.

With courage, compassion, and consistency I wish you the very best.

Please feel free to comment underneath or get in touch through the details on my website if you want to share anything about what I’ve written. Find out more about me here if you’d like to but in the meantime, look after yourself!