It is time to reflect on a particular type of suffering. In the many years that we have had the privilege of offering counsel and support to adults, the most common root of painful conditions, such as anxiety, agoraphobia, eating disorders, complex post-traumatic stress disorders and many others were childhood trauma.
Amongst the most common experiences of childhood trauma were separation from primary carers, verbal and physical abuse from parents, sexual abuse by trusted adults, schoolyard bullying, rejection by peers, extreme experiences of physical illness and the death of a parent or a sibling.
The most common reaction to these events is what we call the process of internalisation. People most commonly internalise sadness, guilt, worry, depression, anxiety, anger and fear. Signs of internalisation in a child are sadness, withdrawal, shyness, physical complaints and inhibition.
As we said earlier the most common disorders that occur when painful emotions have been internalised by a child or an adult are depression, anxiety, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, passive-aggressive behaviours’, and extreme anger and aggression.
People who live with internalised painful emotions live in a constant state of emotional struggle and often describe their state as living in perpetual darkness. If you are living there, there is a way by which you can walk through this dark valley. Consistent with the idea of walking through suffering, it is a five step journey.
The first, and perhaps the most transformational step for those who have been hurt by a particular perpetrator is to address what we call projected guilt. If you have been manipulated to accept the guilt and to carry the shame for what another person has done to you, now is the time to challenge that lie by shifting the blame for the event back to the perpetrator.
Shifting the blame and the guilt that you have carried back to where it belongs is a choice you make to challenge a dominant and destructive belief and to see it as the lie it is. It is like saying, “I may have been a victim of abuse but I refuse to be the victim of false guilt.”
Dealing with false or projected guilt is the first part of step one and accepting how you have chosen to respond to the event is the other. All your life you may have wrongly believed that you are guilty of the event whilst at the same time blaming the perpetrator and others for the angry and resentful behaviour that injured you and people you love. The good news is that those painful responses are yours and therefore you have the power and the responsibility to deal with them. The question is. Do you have the will to start.
Don’t miss my next blog when I talk about step 2.
To continue the journey of healing, check out my latest book: Walking in the Light at Midnight.