Trauma poisoned us.

Make no mistake: trauma poisoned us. Just as surely as rattlesnake venom would. 

Abuse poisoned our beliefs about ourselves. It conditioned us to believe we “deserve” to be hurt. 

Neglect poisoned our beliefs about our worthiness. It conditioned us to believe that we were not “worth” caring for or protecting. 

Sexual abuse poisoned our beliefs about our body. It conditioned us to believe our worth was in the physical pleasure we could provide others— and that our body was not ours to do with as we prefer. 

Emotional abuse poisoned our attitude toward ourselves. It conditioned us to believe that feeling sad or angry were unforgivable sins— although feeling genuinely happy or enthusiastic were unrealistic fantasies. 

Spiritual abuse poisoned any relationship we might have otherwise had with our Creator, higher power, or gurus or teachers that might otherwise have positively shaped how we relate to the non-physical. 

Financial abuse poisoned our beliefs and attitudes about money— especially our ability to earn, save, and manage it. 

Bullying poisoned our beliefs toward our age group peers. Speaking for myself, I still struggle to relate to men around my age, specifically because it is difficult to not see my bullies in them— and this is after years in recovery and multiple psychology degrees. 

Relational abuse poisoned our beliefs about whether we can or should be close to others. One of the hardest things I’ve had to work on in my own trauma recovery is my belief that I cannot be romantically close to someone without eventually hurting them. 

“Flashbulb” trauma— trauma the happens out in the world and isn’t personally linked to us, such as accidents or acts of war or terrorism, poison our belief that the world is a safe, predictable place. This kind of trauma can literally poison our willingness to leave our house. 

Not only does abuse, neglect, and other trauma poison us— we feel that poison circulating through our entire body every time we’re triggered into a flashback (including emotional or somatic flashbacks). 

When we are poisoned by trauma, it is very common to wonder why. 

Why me? Why did this happen? Why now? 

But in my experience, this is about as sensical as asking a rattlesnake why it bit. 

We may be able to from some hypotheses— but ultimately, we’ll never know. There won’t be a “why” that will make what we endured “okay.” 

When you’re bit by a rattlesnake, it’s more important to treat the wound and extract the poison than to insist the snake explain its behavior. 

How do we treat the wound and extract the poison? 

We work our recovery. 

We get clear on how trauma poisoned us. 

We read up on how trauma poisons us. We read books and blogs and social media pages from sources we trust. We watch videos and listen to podcasts from people— ideally other survivors— who know what they’re talking about. 

We notice how trauma conditioned has distorted who we are and what we’re all about— and we start identifying ways to interrupt those patterns. 

We start looking for ways to scratch the record. 

We get clear on our goals and values, and what beliefs, behaviors, skills, tools, and philosophies we’d need to develop to achieve those goals and live those values. 

This is all recovery. 

The trauma poison will try, hard, to convince you it’s too late. It will try to convince you that your blood is more venom than blood anymore. It all try to convince you it’s no good to try to extract the poison or heal the wound. 

Trauma poisons our beliefs about our ability to recover. 

Don’t believe the poison. 

Believe the survivors who are working their recovery. 

Believe the survivor who is writing this. 

Believe. 

Believe. 

Believe.