The trauma that happened to you is not your fault. Find someone who will tell you that over and over. Don’t give up. You are worthy. You matter. Your feelings matter. Your story matters. It takes a long time to believe that it truly was not our fault. That we could’ve done something differently. Or that we could have prevented it. For years I believed the things that happened to me were my fault. I believed that if only I had been a better little girl my mom would have wanted me. Perhaps even loved me. I spent most of my life trying to make my mom love me. It was only in recent years that I know there was nothing – NOT ONE THING – I could have done to make her love me or want me. And neither could you. We were little children – babies, some of us. We didn’t know – couldn’t know.
The journey through trauma healing is not pleasant. It is long and messy and hard. It’s full of ups and downs. Sometimes it feels like I take 2 steps forward and 3 steps back. I’m learning to be grateful for the good days. And on the bad days, I reach out to my ‘Mom’. That was a huge step
in and of itself – to be able to reach out to someone when the days are dark. What might look like baby steps to some people, are huge for us who are going through trauma healing. It takes lots and lots of encouragement. It takes even more tears. Kindness. Be gentle with yourself.
You’ve already suffered too much. Jesus never meant for you to carry this grief alone. Find someone to help you. Someone who will listen. Someone who will care about your heart. Someone who cares about the wounds inside. Someone who will be gentle enough help you heal. Seek professional help. There are lots of resources available to help with trauma healing. I have personally done two different types of trauma therapy, both of which I would highly recommend. EMDR therapy and neurofeedback. Both have been very helpful. I recognize that each person/situation is different and what may work for me may not be the best option for
another person. If you don’t have access to therapy, find a few books to read or podcasts to listen to. Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk ‘s book, The Body Keeps the Score, is a good place to start. Or Janina Fisher’s
book, Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors is another good one. Lysa Terkeurst has several good books as well. One of my favorites from her is It’s Not Supposed to be This Way. Larry Crabb, Dan Allender, Donald Miller, Philip Yancey all have some really good books to help you get started. Find books that speak to your soul. If you listen to podcasts or have access to you tube, here’s a small list to help you get started.
Dan Allender
Pat Ogden
Dan Siegel
Brenee Brown
Curt Thompson
Adam Young
Lysa Terkeurst are a few you might want to check out.

I most likely don’t know you, but feel free to reach out. I would be more than happy to share the things I’ve learned along the way. I’m not done healing yet. I don’t know
if I will ever be ‘done’ this side of heaven. I still have days when I’m not sure how I will get through. We all do. It’s part of the life we are called to live here.

-Here is the remaining part of the article and resources from a survivor friend! May Jesus bless you and may you find rest in Him as you journey through trauma or be a friend to someone walking that road.

This podcast is very helpful- I would encourage you to listen to it! This podcast does really well explaining FASD.

Here is the continuation from the last post – Part 2

Trauma is stored in the body. Childhood trauma can manifest itself in many forms. They are too numerous to mention them all. Physical illnesses. Food intolerances. Learning disabilities. Relationship problems. Inability to receive love or care. Depression. Anxiety. Insomnia. C-PTSD. To name a few. If you have experienced childhood trauma or abuse, and before you decide that healing is not possible for you, hang in there, because it IS! There is not something wrong with you. You are
not flawed or defective. It was the people God placed in your life to take care of you and love you, who did not take care of you like He intended. It’s not your fault. I know all too well the feelings of worthlessness, trash, defiled, unwanted, no place to belong, feeling like I’m the problem, despair, depression and so many more. Your feelings are legitimate. God gave you
feelings and emotions. Feel them. When they overwhelm you, take a break if you can. And if you can’t, it’s ok. Sometimes feelings overtake you and there is nothing to do but feel them. Sometimes there are no feelings at all. Just deadness. Because to feel anything is too painful. So we turn it off. If you’re in that place, it’s ok too. Be where you need to be. Your feelings awaken in time. You can’t rush healing. I would if I could. Many times over. My therapist told me one time ‘You are a sprinter; God’s asking you to run a marathon.’ Healing won’t happen overnight. Our trauma didn’t happen overnight. Not if it was chronic. Don’t give up on yourself. I know the pain of not being able to look at yourself in the mirror because it hurts too much. Because facing
yourself means facing reality. The reality of your life. Your wounds. Your pain. Sometimes all you can do is curl into a fetal position and let your pain wash over you in waves. As an adult on the road to healing, you have to feel the pain that God protected you from feeling as a child. There’s no other way around it. I know the pain of desperately trying to hold on – begging yourself to not give up. Looking into your own eyes, with tears streaming down your face, begging yourself to hold on one more time. Sometimes all you can do is focus on taking the next breath. Then the next. And another. It’s ok if that’s all you can focus on. I won’t tell you to move on. I won’t tell you to get over it. There is no moving on from the things that happened to us. They are part of who
we are. There is only through. Through the mountains of grief and pain. Through the losses too many to count. Through the darkest valleys of a shame we were never meant to bear. A shame that isn’t ours, but one we were forced to carry. So much shame. And grief. I don’t know how to
grieve well. It just comes. There is no stopping it. Our grief needs to be felt. To be honored. We spent so much of our lives being unseen. Being dishonored. Being invisible. Part of healing is being seen. Heard. Held safe. Our stories need telling. They need to be heard. To be lamented.
Most people shy away from the messy part of healing. Jesus never did. He not only sat with the broken, He sought out the broken. He never told anyone to move on or move beyond. He sat in the messiness and the brokenness with them. He stayed with me when no one else did. He didn’t just sit there and keep his hands clean. He got down in the mess and the dirt and the filth
of my wounds and my pain and was with me in it. That’s the Jesus of Heaven. He doesn’t sit on the front benches of any church or appear in a perfectly tailored suit. The Jesus I know gets messy. He’s not afraid to get down in the dirt. He’s not afraid of your wounds. He’s not repulsed
by your pain. He won’t tell you to pull yourself together and move on. He will invite you into the pain of your own heart. He will explore your wounds with you. And when it hurts so much that you lash out at Him, He’s ok with that too. Before He shows you those wounds, He knew they
would be painful. He knew you would need to lash out. He still won’t let you go. And He’ll stay with you in it. He won’t abandon you in and leave you alone in it. Don’t be surprised if people do because they will. Jesus never will. Even when you think He has. Cry out to Him; He will hear
you. If you have experienced spiritual abuse and can’t talk to God, it’s ok. He understands. Sadly, He is often very much misrepresented by people who call themselves Christian. To those of us who have experienced abuse and trauma, we often have an inaccurate view of God
because of this. The truth about God is that He is close to the broken hearted. He doesn’t sit on His throne with a sharp spear, ready to condemn anyone who dares to contradict Him. He gets off His throne. He bends sown and He whispers softly to us. He holds us close. He’s very
gentle. Because He knows just how much we hurt. He doesn’t tell us to to forgive and forget. Our pain matters to Him. Our shattered hearts matter. Our desolate souls are tenderly loved and cared for by the God of the universe Who comes close. When no one else sees our pain, when
we have to hide it in order to survive, He sees. He cares. He weeps. Because He hurts too. And He wants to heal you.

Watch for the third and final post in this series coming today!

Part 1

What a complex subject: trauma. Because abuse and trauma are very complex. Developmental
and/or childhood trauma leaves an impact on a person in a way that nothing else does. It
changes the neurons in the physical part of your brain. God created our brains to be wired for
connection. Trauma creates separation. Isolation. It fragments the brain into parts. If you were
two years old and you experienced a traumatic event and no one was there to help you process
it, part of your brain gets stuck at 2 years old. You weren’t safe. Or cared for. Your body will grow
to become an adult, but your brain can have many different ‘ages’.
I personally experienced lots of different traumas growing up, along with many different kinds of
abuse. This is called chronic trauma, or ACE. Adverse Childhood Experiences. When that
happens, many different ‘parts’ are formed, because of the different ages/stages that things
happened.

Rejection, abandonment, and neglect are some of the worst traumas a child can experience. It
does more damage than almost any other kind of trauma, because there is no contact. For
myself, physical or sexual abuse was often more preferable than not, because at least there
was someone paying me some kind of attention. It sounds twisted but it’s very true. Because
some kind of attention, even negative attention is better than the nothingness of abandonment
or rejection.

The reason why rejection, neglect and abandonment are so much more damaging is because
there is so much isolation. There’s nothing. No one notices. No one cares. Children are left to
fend for themselves; to live or die as the case may be. Most children will fight to live. It’s why
we’re so good at surviving. It was either fend for yourself or die trying. It’s actually a form of
protection for us. Those of us who grew up with trauma and abuse, know that if we would’ve had
to feel the pain of the things we endured as a baby or child, we would not have been able to
survive. God gave us that protection of being able to shut off our brain.

But the very things that God gave us for protection as children in those circumstances, often
hinder us in the healing process. Especially when we encounter someone in our lives who truly
and genuinely cares and loves us. We are incapable of receiving love and care because of all
the trauma. Not because we don’t want to, but because we don’t know how to. We can see it
around us but we can’t get it for ourselves. Love and care are not things that we were ever
taught. And if a child isn’t taught, they don’t know. We are unable to recognize what it looks like
when someone truly does love us the way Jesus intended. We don’t trust love because we
can’t. Or care. Maybe we’ve been told that we’re not worthy of love. Or that we’re too hard to
love. Or that we don’t deserve love. Or maybe the ‘love’ that’s been modeled to us was
connected to abuse. Maybe our parents ‘loved’ us as long as we were good, but as soon as we
disappointed them they withdrew their ‘love’. To trust love means more hurt. By the time we’re
adults, our hearts are so tattered that there’s hardly anything left to even want to believe in a
good kind of love. God created us for love and relationship. Connection. Trauma and abuse
sever all of that. It isolates us. Sometimes it even isolates us from ourselves. We don’t know
who we are. We are more like a robot than we are the person that God created us to be.

Hello once again to all our readers! We are so happy to have each of you join us as we continue to seek Jesus and His will and plan for our lives. Our journey’s are each so different and special to us. I hope each of us can look back over our lives and see God’s hand, plan and protection. God is Faithful and He is Good!

^{We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Romans 15:1}

Trauma – a deeply distressing or disturbing experience; an emotional response to a terrible event.

In the next few post we are going to take a look at what trauma is and maybe touch a little on how it effects the brain. Most of us have experienced trauma in some form whether small or big. We will also be pulling from an article from a survivor friend of ours. If you have experienced trauma you can likely identify with the story. If not, I encourage you to still read it and learn what you can because you will be able to care better when you understand the person dealing with trauma and what actually happens in the brain when trauma occurs. I personally have several siblings that have suffered from trauma in the past. It breaks my heart to think they are suffering the consequences of other people’s choices. They are dealing with so much heartache, pain, being misunderstood all because someone else did not choose right or most of all, Jesus. Let’s band together to gain knowledge and understanding of the hurting and trauma survivor’s around us.

Words: Damarus