Trauma can be a very difficult experience to process. It can leave us feeling vulnerable, scared, and alone.
Defining Trauma
Trauma is a term often used to describe deeply distressing or disturbing experiences that can leave lasting impacts on a person’s mental, emotional, and physical well-being. It’s not tied to any single type of event and can stem from a range of situations — it could be the result of enduring severe stress, experiencing a life-threatening incident, or surviving prolonged periods of extreme pressure or adversity. The reaction to trauma can vary significantly from person to person, with some individuals recovering quickly while others suffer from persistent effects. This can lead to conditions like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression. It’s essential to remember that trauma is subjective and individual — what might be traumatic for one person may not be for another.
In our attempts to cope with the debilitating effects of trauma, many of us try to sanitize our trauma stories, thinking that it will help us move on and because we are concerned with how the details may impact other people. However, this approach to healing can be problematic.
Sanitizing Your Trauma Leads to Avoidance
Sanitizing your trauma story can inadvertently lead to avoidance, a common response to traumatic experiences that can keep you stuck. By sanitizing your story, you may be attempting to minimize the emotional impact of the event, denying yourself the chance to fully acknowledge the depth of your experience. This can result in suppressing your feelings and emotions linked to the trauma, which can fester and disrupt your healing process. Moreover, by glossing over your trauma, you may also be denying yourself the chance to understand your own resilience and ability to survive and overcome, thus impeding your progress towards healing. Therefore, it’s important to confront and engage with your trauma story as it is, in all its raw and sometimes painful detail. This is a crucial step towards acceptance, recovery, and ultimately, healing. Often times, this work is done with a skilled and trained professional. This important work can also be supplemented and supported by finding resources that help you process and understand your experience.
Indeed, when you sanitize your trauma story, you are not fully processing the experience. Trauma affects us on many levels, and we need to tap into all our senses to truly understand and heal from it. This means that we need to explore the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings associated with the traumatic event. Sanitizing tends to minimize the trauma, leaving out important details that may help us better understand its impact on our lives. Additionally, when we sanitize our trauma stories, we also overlook the important context and interpersonal elements of our experience. By not addressing these additional layers and nuances associated with our trauma story, we can’t hope to gain a deeper understanding of how the event has shaped us.
The Reason You May Be Sanitizing Your Trauma
Secondly, it’s important to look at why you might be sanitizing your trauma story. Are you trying to protect someone else? Are you worried about being judged or stigmatized? Are you concerned that your story may overwhelm others? Whatever the reason may be, it’s important to realize that sanitizing your story won’t make the trauma go away. If anything, it will make it harder for you to heal and move on. This is by no means an invitation to talk to everyone about all the details of your trauma, but rather it is an important and helpful aspect to understanding how you are processing your trauma. Rather, finding a skilled professional to help you process all the elements of your trauma, would be appropriate and beneficial.
Furthermore, it’s important to recognize that it is okay to talk about your trauma. There are very likely going to be many people who have gone through similar experiences, and talking to them, in the appropriate context, can help you gain perspective and strength in your journey towards healing. Not only that, by sharing your experience you allow others to share their’s more openly as well. You don’t have to sanitize your story — instead, acknowledge the trauma for what it is and explore its impact on you.
Society Does It Too
Thirdly, society tends to sanitize trauma stories, portraying them as neat and tidy, with a clear beginning, middle, and end. However, trauma is messy, and the healing process is often non-linear. By sanitizing your story to fit into society’s expectations, you are denying yourself the opportunity to fully process and heal from the trauma.
Hampers Healing
Fourthly, sanitizing your trauma story will stop you from healing because you’ll be leaving out the most traumatic parts. These are the parts that may be the most difficult to talk about, but they are also the parts that need the most attention. By avoiding these parts, you are denying yourself the opportunity to fully heal.
It can also leave you feeling isolated and alone. This is because you won’t be able to share the full extent of your trauma with anyone else, leaving you without the support and understanding that can come from talking openly about it. When we talk to people who have had similar experiences or process the trauma with a therapist, we build a connection with them and strengthen our understanding and acceptance of ourselves.
The Importance of Finding a Safe and Supportive Space
Finally, remember that sanitizing your story leaves the horror in the past, which is a good thing when you are ready to move on. However, in order to fully heal, you need to work through all the ugly trauma, so that you can find resolution and closure. Sanitizing your trauma will stop you from healing, and it will haunt you. It will affect your body, your mind, and your spirit. The key is to find a safe and supportive space where you can explore your trauma story in its entirety, without fear of judgment or stigma.
Sanitizing your trauma story won’t let you heal. It may seem like an easy thing to do, but in the long run, it will only make the healing process harder. Instead, take the time to fully process your trauma story, exploring all the ugly and difficult parts. Seek out a safe and supportive space where you can do this work, and know that healing is possible. It may take time, but by facing your trauma story head-on, you’ll be on the path to a better and more fulfilling life. If you are looking for a therapist who can help you on your healing journey, please reach out to our clinicians at Headway Therapy. You are not alone.
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