Some of the most meaningful trauma recovery work we will ever do occurs in our later acts.
One of Trauma Brain’s most persistent, pernicious lies is that we’re “too old” to meaningfully recover.
This lie often goes hand in hand with the lie that there’s something “shameful” about struggling with trauma reactions and symptoms after a certain age.
This is particularly the case when our trauma originates in our childhood— “that was so long ago, how are you not over it by now?”— but it’s also true when we’ve been traumatized as adults, for example by domestic violence or coercive spiritual control.
Our culture just loves this beliefs that adults “shouldn’t” be vulnerable to traumatic stress— and that if we are, it represents some kind of “immaturity” or “weakness” on our part.
Traumatic stress responses are injuries.
Very infrequently do serious injuries heal on their own, with just the passage of time— especially when we’re doing things that tend to make them worse.
Trying to deny, disown, or ignore trauma wounds, we’re functionally trying to walk on broken limbs.
Yes, we might be able to limp along, and we might even be able to dissociate the pain of doing so to a greater or lesser degree— but in the end, it can only make the injury itself worse.
What many people fail to understand about CPTSD in particular is that the experience of living with complex trauma reactions, is itself a trauma.
Part of what makes complex trauma “complex” is the fact that it rarely stems from one time incidents— something that happened, but is definitively “over” now.
And even if the “main” part of the trauma happened in the past, the experience of CPTSD symptoms tend to be so dysregulating, so life-disrupting, that living with them creates its own level of complex trauma.
Complex trauma, by definition, unfolds over time, entwines with our important relationships, and is functionally inescapable.
The experience of CPTSD, just like the experience of chronic medical illness or chronic pain, very much ticks all the “boxes” of complex trauma.
So: why on earth should we assume that CPTSD, which itself imposes a daily experience of complex trauma, would get better with time, or as we age?
Why on earth would we assume adults are less vulnerable to CPTSD than children, regardless of when the original trauma occurred?
Some people will answer that question by explaining that adults have more resources, development, experience, and physical size than children, and are thus better able to cope with CPTSD— and that might be true for many people, but “coping” is not the same as “resolving.”
Adults are human— and humans are vulnerable to traumatic stress, regardless of when they are exposed to it.
Adults who are exposed to complex traumatic stress are often at an even greater risk of developing CPTSD, insofar as they often feel cultural pressure to hide and minimize their experience rather than seeking support.
All of which is to say: most of the life changing CPTSD recovery work I do is with adults in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, and even 70’s. No joke.
It’s with adults who have decided that they’re not “too old” to work a trauma recovery— but they ARE “too old” to let another day go by with the voices of their bullies and abusers in their head, calling the shots.
The culture will absolutely try to shame you to of seeking support fo CPTSD, and it will often collaborate with your Trauma Brain to do it. “You’re too old” is one of its most successful tools, because it hooks right up with the cultural shame we already feel about aging.
Don’t lose the forest for the trees with all this.
If you are reading this, you are at exactly the right age to recover from trauma.
Starting today, if today is when you’re starting.
Use Your Damn Skills 