One of our family's traditions is lighting the candles on our tree on Christmas Eve. It's one that my (German) husband grew up with. I'm sharing this here not because it's a pretty holiday ritual but because it's one that used to scare me.
I've talked about being a rape survivor and the impact that trauma had/has on me. But another one of my other past traumas was a house fire. It was January 2006 and I was living in Connecticut. I've blocked out most of the technical details but an "improperly installed wood stove" was to blame. For countless years after, fire trucks blaring by and small fires made me freeze and my heart race.
A few years after my husband and i moved into our house, we bought a wood stove. This wood stove is maintained religiously by my husband (daily in the winter) and annually by the company who installed it. I burn a candle in my offlet when I'm sitting down to write. And once a year we light candles on our tree. Today, when I hear a fire engine shriek, I send prayers and go about my day.
Trauma survivors can move beyond being triggered by a past traumatic event. We can stop having a stress response to something related to a past trauma. Time helps, yes, but one thing that's more important is trust...between you and your right people and right relationships.
Early on in our relationships, I tested* my husband with vulnerability statements to see how he'd respond. (If he screwed up, I don't remember it.) The vulnerability statements I shared sometimes became vulnerability exchanges. Trust grew out of that back and forth. That trust (along with his steadiness and kindness) continues to make me feel safe.
When we feel safe with people, we feel calmer and more in control. Something small is less likely to set us off. *And* we are more willing to try something scary. Not dangerous scary but unknown, different scary. Or even “adjacent to past trauma” scary like installing a wood stove or lighting candles on a tree.
My wish for you as we close in on the end of this whopper of a year is that you remind yourself - daily even - that you are worth more than the things that happened/happen to you. And, by the way, when you're worth more, you deserve more.
*and still do.
