Sometimes I free-write and riff when I first wake up. I let go of grammar, punctuation and sometimes even logic. I follow the words and the pen and see what happens. It doesn't have to be neat, artistic, poetic or amazing. It feels wonderful and is like splashing around in a pool in the mind. Today I was thinking about grief and ACEs and storyteller because I'd been listening to Kate Braestrup tell a story on Moth. Beautiful audio is what this is.
It's about grief, loss, and mourning.
And to me, for me, it's also about ACEs. It doesn't mention ACEs but it says something about skepticism, pain and conversation that I find important. And so I free-wrote on that today.
I often tell people that one need not be a therapist to the acknowledge the loss of someone who has died and to offer compassion and recognition to the person grieving. One need not be skilled at helping someone "process the grief" to be human with another human in pain. It's like we forget this or have medicalized human experiences.
I think we heal just saying the truth about how our lives are, what they are filled with or absent of and being able to have conversations about it all. So often, those of us with ACEs are talked about but not talking to one another or leading conversations (though that's changing). Often, we're not the people driving and shaping the conversation. It's especially true when people are talking about if, when and how to discuss ACEs with people.
Fear is often in the room. Discomfort is often in the space. We've had one swing of things when it was the "feel it to heal it" talk all the time days of addressing trauma. Now, we're in the pendulum on the other side where we're afraid to talk and sometimes don't even allow survivors to speak about trauma.
There's a difference between detailing every detail of what causes trauma and talking about how one lives with, lives through and recovers from trauma while going about the business of having a life. VERY DIFFERENT. And how one lives in the present, after a whole lot of ACEs, is often impacted, deeply and repeatedly, by the past. But it's not a revisiting of the past but a looking to the past for context about what's troubling in the present. So often, those of us with ACEs are alone in this, in our families, homes, schools, neighborhoods and communities. And often, those wo seek to help or support us are often guessing and missing what we most need, want and struggle with and what we most nurtures, supports and sustains us. Often, we don't get to even share that with one another.
Which is a shame. Anyhow, this story is about grief, loss, death, and mourning. It doesn't say a word about ACEs. But to me, it's instructive.
These parts in particular when Braestrup talks about how people in pain don't need the skepticism of others and these:
"Nowadays, we're kind of persuaded that the presence of the body, not its absence that is most distressing. But in my experiences, and I have a lot of experiences by now, people are far more likely to regret not having seen the body than to wish they hadn't done it."
For me, with ACEs, I'd modify it say, "Nowadays, we're kind of persuaded that the talking about trauma in words is what is most distressing and triggering, not the ACEs themselves. But in my experience, and I have a lot of experiences by now, people are far more likely to be pained by the fear from others and the awkward silence than they are to be simply be asked about their experiences and choose if, when and how to respond."
I also share the hope of Braestrup.
"You can trust a human being with grief. That's what I tell the wardens. I tell them just walk fearlessly into the house of mourning. Grief is just love squaring up to its oldest mortal enemy. After all these mortal human years, love is up to the challenge."
I just love that because I think people are remarkable and if we hear and listen to what each other has been through, what we struggle with and how we've made sense of it and what we are still learning, we will inspire and encourage and affirm one another.
Hope isn't triggering. Honest sharing even of the hardest parts of life is not too much. Leaving people alone and in the dark to figure it out on their own so often, that is needlessly hard and I'd say cruel. We can have each other and that's really all we need.
P.S. She said one other thing that made me think of work and being newer in a job which I think is probably pretty universal and well said.
"I had to fake absolute confidence in this. I didn't have absolute confidence because I'd never done this before."
I LOVE that honesty, tenderness, and wisdom. It's a blanket for a day out in the world that one is in, feeling chilled and without a coat. Words can be warmth til we find our way home.
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