I had someone tell me they wished something had happened to them, some societally-acceptable, legitimate reason for being so emotionally screwed up. They felt so much pain and felt they had no wound or severe trauma that would explain why.
Anyone who has sadly suffered such a fate, would very adamantly state that no one should wish that trauma on themselves.
However, I do understand the desire to have some significant experience that can rationalize why you hurt and struggle so much. If there’s nothing to blame it on, then is it just you and these are just the cards you were dealt?
The truth is that you don’t need a significant traumatic event to explain why you are traumatized and hurting. Small traumas over time or a negative thought pattern about yourself and the people around you that you learned as an infant, can lead to significant depression, pain and struggle.
Another common theme among people that feel emotionally upside down is the perplexity of the people they see walking around seemingly happy and the question is … what do they have that I don’t?
People walk around us, going to work, playing their role and doing it day after day after day. They seem happy. They seem content. Are they?
What I have seen is that the people that look obliviously content and without emotional struggles actually are as they seem. It is when trauma effects their life, that they fall apart.
People like you and I, that struggle regularly with depression, anxiety, guilt, shame, problems in marriage, problems with family, kids, etc., have already experienced mild forms of trauma throughout our lives, better equipping us for the ones to come.
One of the reasons we are better able to cope with life’s traumas is because with every trauma, large or small, we are supplied insight. Insight opens your mind, shows you what is truly important in life, it knocks you off of whatever high ground you were previously standing on. Insight increases empathy for others and even some compassion for yourself. Traumas bring you closer to God and allow you to touch other people’s lives with your experience.
You may think you’d rather be one of those happy-go-lucky people, but when you learn to see your struggle as a gift, you figure out how to use it.