Trauma recovery often includes processing grief
Trauma recovery takes time, often due to a complexity of layers, including emotions. One of the layers often includes grief. Both what happened and what didn’t happen. If only… regrets, wishes, disappointments, hurt, sadness…
For many individuals I support who were abused, neglected and mistreated as children, grief may first come in the form of expressing anger. Moving out of denial, depression and shame. Maybe eventually learning to see through present-day adult eyes the flawed parents who let them down. Not to blame, rather to accept their limitations, and often emotional immaturity.
Learning to mourn ambiguous loss with trauma recovery
Sometimes unprocessed trauma is like living in a fog of melancholy and indefinable grief. A common response to trauma is to not talk about it, to deny any of it ever happened. Too overwhelming to even acknowledge. Yet, that’s how trauma remains un-processed and un-metabolized. Regardless, there is a heavy weight and burden.
Grief has a tendency to manifest as weight in the body. Sometimes the weight of grief is transmitted generationally. Perhaps your parents longed for place(s) they left behind, which sat like an unnamed heaviness over everything in your household. Whereas you didn’t get to meet relatives or become familiar with culture(s) and habits of your ancestors. The ambiguous losses of: extended family, language(s), customs, and belonging in a place with context plus more.
Somatic Therapy can support releasing the emotions from the body and find relief
So often when I ask clients to notice how grief shows up in the body, there is a tightness in the chest, a shallow breath pattern, along with other tension patterns. Giving attention to these areas along with attuned somatic guidance, you may find patterns softening, more breath available and space to allow the emotions to arise and pass through.
Most often, it’s holding back and denying the feelings that is a lot for the body and your nervous system to manage. While no one likes crying, learning to be with the waves of grief can be quite relieving. Shoulders soften, muscles let go, and afterwards, there’s often exhaustion from having tried to hold all of that back.
In the company of a trusted witness, sometimes sharing the anger, grief and sadness can be held together, and far less overwhelming.
Both grieving and recovering from trauma are nonlinear processes
Supporting the grieving process along with trauma recovery, I have noticed individuals move between different stages and phases, in a nonlinear fashion. Often there is anger, wishing things could have turned out different. There may be denial, and moving through life as if everything is fine again. Periods of depression, self-blame and shame. There may be inklings of acceptance, and then back to denial and anger. Fluctuating between and moving through these different emotions is essential for grieving.
Sometimes the process includes mourning the un-lived life, or the person who might have been. Grief for having been too afraid to… Further along in grieving and with the trauma recovery, the process may include reconnecting with qualities, “I used to be…” and having them more available so as to live more as who you want to be again.
Emerging from grief and shame in trauma recovery
Many of the individuals I support from immigrant families have adapted to their circumstances by a particular strategy: do it yourself. Don’t count on anyone, or you’ll just be disappointed.
You may have seen this in your parents, created from the absence of or limited support system. An unforeseen consequence of immigration, family histories and being a minority in this country…
Common responses to grief and trauma are to isolate. Shame manifests as an impulse to withdraw, not wanting to be around others, not wanting to be seen. The strategy to go-it-alone eventually leads to fatigue, depletion and loneliness.
Many of us have lost connection to traditions and rituals to grieve and support one through traumatic experiences in community. Some find online networks supportive, which can only go so far. While not feeling alone and the connections are important, there’s nothing quite like actual shoulders to lean into and cry on to lighten your load.
Ultimately, some of the most meaningful work of your life may be building the web of relationships—the friendships, family of choice, mentors and wise elders who will celebrate you at the important milestones, and serve as the net to catch you whenever you might need.
Recommended:
Healing from Trauma: A Survivor’s Guide to Understanding Your Symptoms and Reclaiming Your Life, by Jasmin Lee Cori & Richard Scaer, MD
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, by Kiran Desai
What My Bones Know, by Stephanie Foo
The Translator’s Daughter, by Grace Loh Prasad
