Paranoia

A big part of trauma is a part of your nervous system is saying NEVER AGAIN.  It is saying “I never want to feel that feeling again”.  This is the root of hypervigilence.  It is watching, scanning, looking for patterns, for anything unusual, anything out of the ordinary, and putting the worst possible interpretation on anything that is–or more commonly–is perceived as out of place.

To heal trauma, therefore, requires faith.  You have to go naked, or so it feels, into the world.  You have to go somewhat as a child, as someone who does not know what is possible.

Christ’s dictum to be as innocent as a dove and as cunning as a serpent is apposite.  You need to forget malice, forget grief, forget all the cares and worries of the world.  But not forget them, either.  It’s a dance, a difficult feat of emotional magic, but it is a worthy ideal.

You have to learn to love as if that is the only thing in the world, and when wounded, to go naked out again.

Oh, perhaps I am waxing rhapsodic in a vague parody of myself, and people like me.

Most of all, this voice needs to be reduced in volume.  It has a place.  It does not need to be silenced.  That is not the goal.  This is hyPOvigilence, which is a real risk for most trauma survivors.  It simply needs to learn, through contact with the real world (it had in reality been in an internal loop) how to function properly.