There are many times when I feel overwhelmed by life’s circumstances. My problems often seem like a matter of life and death; if I don’t figure out a solution, something terrible will happen. I feel responsible for whatever outcome happens, and so to avoid the weight of guilt over any negative consequences, I am desperate to fix any problems. The result is panic which comes out as anger and only causes more grief.
What I have only now started to realize is that these big life-or-death reactions to basic problems such as my son getting a cold, my cat not eating, or my husband having back pain are a response driven by past trauma. All of these emotions have a root in past trauma, and my current experience is a trigger for the unprocessed emotions of it. When you have trauma that doesn’t have an outlet for healing, it stores in your body. When you have a dissociative disorder such as DID and have multiple alters or parts, these parts are also storing the trauma.
So when an event or sometimes even a phrase or song triggers this trauma, it comes bubbling up from the places it’s been stored. Sometimes unprocessed trauma can come in the form of physical pains or sickness. A cold can be a sign of unprocessed emotions because when we have too much unprocessed emotion stored up our bodies respond as though it’s fighting a virus. I have often had strange pains or even sores that seem to come out of nowhere, only to find it related to a past event in which my body experienced extreme trauma.
Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
1 Peter 5:7
It’s very hard to manage past trauma responses and emotions when you feel bombarded by them. Even if they don’t come at you every day, just the overwhelm from the trauma coming up is enough for some people to completely shut down. Especially when you have no idea why you are responding in such a dramatic way. It can be scary to have strong feelings over something that seems so trivial.
Recently I have been feeling very overwhelmed because everything has started to feel like a trauma response. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t tell my feelings from unprocessed past emotions. I don’t know what is my parts or body communicating with me because everything seems to be blurring together. I often think I might be paranoid because I believe most of what is happening to me is a targeted attack from the coven members I have been connected to.
The truth is, a lot of it probably is. However, it’s understanding that not everything bad that happens is an attack against me. Sometimes bad things happen because we live in a fallen world. Sometimes people or pets die, and sometimes it’s horrifically because death is a part of the world we live in. When the enemy does attack, that doesn’t negate all the good that God is doing. He works best in our weaknesses, and that means meeting us in our surrender amid overwhelming circumstances.
I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.
Joel 2:25
Dealing with unprocessed emotions is often like dealing with a small child; listening to the needs behind big emotions and addressing them requires patience, grace, compassion, and tenderness. We need to be kind to ourselves as we try to understand why we respond the way we do. I have beat myself up for years for having a panic attack over something and then realizing it was the emotions from the past colliding with the problems of today. It’s self-hate and it doesn’t help.
We can’t take responsibility for things that are out of our control, especially when those things are done as a child. Yet as adults, it’s easy to carry around guilt and punish ourselves ignoring the reality that we have a real enemy who deserves the blame in our place. God the Father isn’t looking down on us for anything, because when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, He becomes the filter that God sees us through.
Yes, there are times in our adult lives when we make bad decisions or we sin and hurt people, but God is still not looking down on us. He has so much grace and mercy for us because He understands our lives as a whole and He can see the condition of our hearts. So we need to learn to take responsibility for only what is in our control. In the face of our sin and weakness, we need to learn to surrender.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6
We need to accept that we are going to fall short of God’s glory because that’s part of this human existence, and we need to learn to forgive ourselves because God has already forgiven us. Letting go of the past only brings healing when we do the hard work to confront how it has affected us and shaped us. And in that process, we need to let go of control over the things that we never had control over and trust that they are in God’s hands.
God is a sovereign and loving Father and He is very concerned with all of creation, all people, and even the smallest things that worry us. He can be trusted to care for our children, our pets, our families, and our friends. He can even be trusted with our country and everything in the world, because He created it. He has a plan, and His plans are always good. God never has plans for evil, but when evil prevails, God always uses it for our good.
We need to learn to make God the center of everything – our thoughts, feelings, and hearts, so that when circumstances become difficult we will not be taken down. Jesus is reaching out to you and asking you to trust Him to calm to storm and the sea. It is a slow process that we can work on day by day, allowing His grace to be the center of our new operating system.
And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.
Psalms 9:10
