the spiral

your trauma is a shapeshifter and you’re here to learn this lesson.

The thing about healing from trauma is that it’s not a one-and-done process. I find a lot of comfort in mystical practices because many are based around the idea that time, and each person’s path, is a spiral, not one long line.

Have you ever read Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner? The thing that struck me most about the book is the structure: In the first few pages, you know most of the general plot points. Then another person tells that story, and it gets deeper and more complex. And then another character tells it and new and vital details unfold. So what was essentially gossip at first unspools to these depths of pain and rage and sadness and by the end you’re marveling at how one story told and retold can take you so deep and feel so fresh.

This is the spiral (and Faulkner is a genius, come at me). The thing about trauma is that the wound is so deep that it’s a part of the fabric of you now. Many people, therapists even, think you can get a handle on it and move on. And boy, if that were true.

Instead you get a handle on it and you’re scooting along living your life and you miss the trap door — a news story, or a kid’s movie, or someone talking about something unrelated — and you are suddenly back in the darkness, at the bottom of the well, fearing for your life.

I’ve learned how to recognize the signs. Shakiness, heart racing, bracing my muscles. That’s followed by fatigue, a deep pain in my joints, the inability to put on a brave face, the need to be alone.

There’s the shame, too. This again? That comment wasn’t about me, it’s just a movie, you shouldn’t have read that story.

And you sit, and you wait, and you begin to wade through.

Then you crawl out. You hop on the horse. And from that level, you can see things in the landscape you haven’t seen before — grooves in relationships, a new understanding of the complex dynamics of it all.

And you head forward, not knowing when the next trap door will appear, where you’ll be when you’re blindsided. And you ride out on the bend of the spiral, thinking maybe you’ve got the skills now to spot the next one. But your trauma is a shapeshifter, and you’re here to learn this lesson.