keywords
trauma, PTSD, storytelling, positive outcomes, toxic positivity, mental health, relationships, healing, expectations, coping strategies
summary
In this conversation, Jess explores the complexities of processing trauma and the pitfalls of seeking a 'sunset ending' or a neatly wrapped conclusion to traumatic experiences. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing both the positive and negative aspects of life after trauma, warning against toxic positivity and the dangers of black-and-white thinking. Jess advocates for a balanced perspective that acknowledges the ongoing nature of healing and the unpredictability of life, encouraging listeners to embrace the grey areas rather than seeking definitive happy endings.
- Positive outcomes after trauma can protect against PTSD.
- Assigning meaning to trauma can lead to delusional thinking.
- Our brains can become obsessed with idealized outcomes.
- Black and white thinking can lead to further trauma.
- Life is unpredictable and can feel terrifying after trauma.
- Toxic positivity can hinder genuine healing.
- Acknowledging both good and bad experiences is crucial.
- Life doesn't have neat conclusions after trauma.
- Trauma can open doors that help or hurt us.
- Aim for a balanced perspective in navigating life post-trauma.
It’s struck me that as we’ve been talking about making a traumatic event into a positive story… we’ve also been edging towards discussing what I call “sunset ending thinking” or “filmatic expecting” which is a danger of human minds.
We want to reach the other side of a t-event and find the pot of gold. The thing that makes it all worthwhile. That validates the struggle and provides meaning to what we’ve experienced.
And also, we can fall into a self-damaging, delusional, pot of piss with this manner of thinking.
Positive outcomes after trauma are protective against PTSD.
Corrective experiences are important ways to undo stresspoints and dysfunctional thought patterns we’ve accidentally collected.
If we can find MEANING, we can process an event readily, by creating a buttoned up storyline.
These are the things we’ve been discussing all last month.
And also.
We need to be careful with our storytelling.
We don’t want to make the mistake of assigning something the label of “the reason for it all,” “the good that negates allll the bad,” “the reward that erases the pain of marching through so much fecal matter.”
Because this sets us up, again, for black and white thinking, insecure attachment, delusion, and further trauma.
Here’s what I mean.
When we, say, go through a few increasingly bad relationships and then land finally on one that feels different… and, perhaps, tell ourselves “THIS IS WHY, I was meant to be abused so that I would eventually get here, to THIS human, which makes it all worthwhile.” What happens? Our brain becomes obsessed with the idea of that person, that relationship. We become attached to an idea, not actuality. And we feel that the relationship must be successful, or else everything was, indeed, for naught. This partnership is, actually, just another drop in the trauma bucket, if we don’t get the outcome we strive for.
This is when we can stay in bad situations for a long time, convinced that not only MUST it work out… but… if it doesn’t, our entire story is a bust. WE are a failure. LIFE is unpredictable and terrifying again.
This is how we put on blinders, make excuses for what we’ve observing, stay tethered to ships with increasingly demanding fares, and sell ourselves up rivers without paddles for an undetermined amount of time.
Where we then have a lot of reckoning to do, once more.
The same can happen after any sort of trauma.
After losing a home or job, it would be easy for a mind to determine “it had to happen so that THIS OTHER OPPORTUNITY could present.” THIS career, THIS move, THIS friendship. And sometimes that is true. We often hear tales of it in common culture.
And sometimes, as I’m suggesting, we’re trying to obtain the same story as others have. WE want that happy ending, too.
Resulting in putting too much weight on an untested aspect of life or new development, which doesn’t allow us to see things clearly. Which leads to a manic-esque mindset in which we happily delude ourselves against all outside, unwanted, information… until enough evidence finally makes us snap into reality.
When we become attached to an idea in this way, as the lifejacket we’ve been waiting for, we can get stuck, get stagnated, get into new rounds of trauma (that often look different from what we’re used to so we estimate that they are healthy or healing)… and get into newly boiling trauma waters.
Because someday that sunset ending? Or, the illusion of it? The delusion of it?
Will vanish. The ability to avoid discomfort, disappears.
Then we’ll have to face the reality of the person or event or opportunity. Which, in and of itself, often becomes a trauma, because our brain was anticipating “left, left, left,” and suddenly this relationship or job or homebase went “right” without warning. And allll the areas of life we’ve been leaning against this cognitive crutch – the permanent products and networks of our delusions - must also rapidly change with the new realizations.
This is why it’s crucial to stay away from toxic positivity (all white thinking) in the trauma aftermath, just as much as we need to guard against toxic pessimism (all black thinking), all the time… but especially after a stressful event.
Example to bring it down to earth: I’m super glad this fire caused me to relocate, firmly bound relationship ties, and become more independent than ever. It would be simple to say “I landed in some sort of paradise! Everything works out!”
And also, that’s not true. I can’t pretend this new home is perfect, that there aren’t annoyances and struggles which are likely to increase with the passage of time, or that I won’t face the pitfalls of loneliness and insecurity post-relationship-binding.
There’s good and bad. Both are true. Relevant. And helpful to acknowledge at all points.
My message is this: watch out for happy ending or golden sunset thoughts. They’re enticing. They’re dramatic. They’re Hollywoodish. And that’s the point. Life doesn’t have closing credits once we escape a round of danger. We have to keep moving, experiencing more, without a grand finale that tightly wraps the chosen storyline.
Traumas are neither the ABSOLUTE DESTRUCTION OF OUR LIVES.
Or.
THE ULTIMATE CHANGE TO FINALLY FIX OUR LIVES.
They’re somewhere in the middle, opening doors that moderately help or hurt us, depending on how we continue to navigate existence afterwards.
A mind will seek happy endings, hoping that struggle struggle struggle terminates in “and now it’s all over, child, rest your head and thrive under this rainbow.” And unfortunately, those are filmatic expectations that rarely work out. Except for the way they prime us for later disappointment and traumatized recalibration.
Hopefully, imparting the ultimate lesson. “Shoot for the gray tones – the blacks and whites bring too-high jumps and falls.” Both of which have negative, longterm, ramifications.
And that’s… ya “hold on now” bonus on the pitfalls of too-positive thinking after a trauma.