Alyson Shelton - Trauma
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Alyson writes a letter to her trauma
Dear Trauma (the big T kind) and trauma (the little t kind),
It’s funny to write you a letter, to address you as if you don’t live in me. As if you’re something separate instead of this essential part of who I am. I have, at different times in my life, ignored or almost drowned in you, both times losing sight of the horizon of myself.
Part of me wonders what an old letter to you would have looked like? Some years, it would have been incredibly detailed, a dossier of hurt, outlining all the ways, all the hands that attempted to erase me. Some years, I wouldn’t have written to you at all because I was demonstrably, “fine.” And there was no room to contemplate you in my overscheduled and carefully constructed life.
Even now, I’m tempted to enumerate the traumas, to explain myself to you, to anyone who still doesn’t believe me or take us seriously, to anyone who refuses to listen with compassion.
They shot my brother, I was raped, another brother died, addiction, raped again, lies, misdirection, did I mention sexual assault? Cause it happened more than once or twice, there’s always more, and that’s what’s infuriating or paralyzing about you, trauma, and why I endeavored, once I found some happiness, to pack you up, put you in a box, seal it shut and stow you on the highest shelf of my closet and let you gather dust, and try to permanently forget about you, for you are not easy or simple or neat.
You are expansive. You contain multitudes. Sometimes I feel like if I make even the smallest space for you, you consume it and me, like the shitiest party trick, like the movie The Blob that was in constant rotation on our TV in the 70’s. It never failed to terrify me. The Blob was slow moving almost comical, sure, my friends could laugh at me,
“Why are you so scared anyway?”
It was easy to outrun but it never gave up. It was relentless. And only I seemed to know, what everyone eventually realized, there was no escape. Oh right, like my trauma. Like us. Because you are not only my experiences, but my mother’s and father’s and ancestors, some I heard and held, as if they were mine, some are completely unknown to me and yet take up residence in my DNA, in me.
For a long time I believed I was strong because of my trauma. That was my silver lining.
“Well, all this awful stuff happened but look at me now!”
Another shitty party trick, pretending this was all part of some master plan or strategy. It wasn’t.
My therapist said to me early on,
“You are not strong because of your trauma, you were always strong, that’s why you’re still here.”
So take that trauma, you don’t get credit for me. For who I am today.
I spent a long time ignoring you, trying to get over you, attempting to be what I imagined was unbroken and approximating whole.
I don’t know what I’m trying to do anymore.
Lately, I’ve been considering grace. And giving myself and everyone more of it. Accepting the fact that I do not need to grind myself into dust to be worthwhile. Ease and joy possess value. I possess inherent value.
I want to live my life. To be grateful for all the joy and love I never could have imagined when I was deep in your sway but didn’t even know your name.
Now, I see you. I’m not ashamed of you. Or of myself. I did nothing wrong. All that shame, it was never mine.
When I was young I stared at the water of the bay we lived on. Comforted by its constancy and its loving presence.
I fled there. To get away from the constant chaos.
Now, I endeavor to build my life with that abiding peace as my center and on most days, I succeed.
Alyson is a writer and lives in LA with her husband and children.