I think what characterizes trauma is emotion NOT felt. I think what happens is that something comes along that is so emotionally powerful that it overwhelms the emotional wiring, that you literally cannot feel the whole thing, the horror, the grief, the shame and guilt, the anger. What lingers then, is the emotional equivalent of an incomplete chemical reaction. Over and over, through psychic intrusions, through a life constrained in many ways, your unconscious tries to complete the process, but we fear it. The damn thing keeps coming back. It won’t let you go. Maybe it even gets worse.
The only way out is through. This phrase was apparently coined by Fritz Perls, and it is unquestionably true, in my view. You have to finish the work, the reaction, and with large things perhaps this has to be done in small doses over an extended period of time. No, it isn’t fair, but this isn’t grade school, either, is it? If that sounds harsh, it is perhaps because I am speaking to myself as well. I am processing–successfully–some really awful shit.