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The Unexpected Healing Power of NOT TALKING About Trauma

 

Many years ago, I found a dead body. It was a man I had been dating for a few months, who had turned out to have even more problems than I knew when I met him. He showed up at my house high on something one night and I made him leave. I told him we could talk about it in the morning and locked the door, unplugged the phone, went to sleep. In the morning I stopped by his apartment as promised. The door was unlocked so I went in and found him, face down.

As I write this, my heart is pounding, my hands are going numb and my mental focus is beginning to go like popcorn. This is what happens when I talk about traumatic memories. It's like throwing water on a grease fire. Water is usually a good thing, like talking is usually a good thing. But grease fires explode when they come in contact with water. Talking about trauma is sometimes that way. This is a very counter-cultural thing to say, but it can be best to calm traumatic memories by just putting a lid on them. (Read the full post at Anna Runkle's blog The Crappy Childhood Fairy)

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Hi Anna, thank you for this perspective. Based on the adult women survivors that have participated in Conversations that Matter, I tend to agree with you. Women usually make a blanket description of what they experienced as a child/young adult.

The value in talking, according to them, is  being able to express how the experience made them feel and how it played a role in who they became as adults.

With gratitude, Leslie

 

 

 

 

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