There are no “have to’s” about telling your story in trauma recovery.

Trauma survivors tend to get a lot of pressure to “tell our story” as part of the “healing” process. 

Survivors are very often told that to tell our story is “brave”— and, yes, telling our story can take extraordinary courage. 

We’re often told that we “need” to tell our story in order to help other survivors— and, yes, telling our story can often help other survivors feel not so alone, not so broken, not so weird or gross. 

In some settings, we’re told that we “have” to tell our story in order for a person or institution to be held accountable for their actions— and, yes, it is often difficult, if not impossible, for some people or institutions to be held accountable without the first hand stories of survivors in the mix. 

However, as with almost everything in trauma recovery telling our story can be complicated. It’s almost never as simple as “telling your story is a good, brave, necessary thing to do.” 

The essence of trauma, especially complex trauma, is that we have had our agency— our ability to choose and act— stripped from us. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe that we have little or not autonomy— that our choices simply don’t mater, because we don’t matter. That’s what our trauma conditioning tries to tell us. 

In trauma recovery, it is overwhelmingly important that we repair and restore our sense of agency, autonomy, and choice— and it is overwhelmingly important that our agency, autonomy, and choices are respected by the people we choose to let in to our recovery. 

There is no “have to” about whether, when, where, and to whom you tell your story. 

There are lots of valid reasons why you might choose not to tell your story at a particular time, in a particular place, or to a particular person. 

Those who tell us that we “have to” tell our story are not respecting our agency and autonomy. Because telling our story is a choice— a choice anyone truly invested in our recovery is going to leave up to us and respect. 

Many complex trauma survivors have lived our entire lives bing told where and when it was acceptable to speak. We’ve had hundreds of decisions about whether we were going to speak or not speak made for us. 

Our trauma recovery cannot include others telling us whether and when to speak or not speak— and that includes telling our story. 

It is not trauma informed practice for a therapist, or anyone else, to start out a relationship with a trauma survivor expecting them to tell you their story. 

Some survivors may not be in a place, safety- and stability-wise, where they CAN tell their story. 

Some survivors ma not want to make telling their story, especially publicly, part of their healing. 

Most importantly, however, no part of trauma recovery can or should be imposed ON a survivor. 

Trauma recovery is all about restoring agency and dignity to survivors— and that means extending them the opportunity and support necessary to tell their story if they choose…but respecting their wishes and their timeline when it comes to whether and when to tell their story. 

There is a cultural narrative about the power of breaking silence to heal— and, yes, many survivors can find telling their story a healing experience. 

But many trauma survivors feel pressured to tell their story before they’re ready or in settings in which they’re not truly comfortable— and that is antithetical to sustainable trauma recovery. 

It’s real important, as we recover from trauma, to not get swept up in any narrative that yanks our agency away from us. 

It’s real important, as we recover from trauma, to feel that we have meaningfully regained control of our lives— including our story. 

It’s real important, as we recover from trauma, that we feel we are making choices— real choices, consequential choices, choices that could be made differently if we wanted to make them differently. 

Tell your story if telling your story is what you need to do— but just as importantly, what you WANT to do. 

What you want and need matters. 

This is the bedrock of realistic, sustainable trauma recovery.