Part— but not all— of trauma recovery is reclamation.
Our abusers and bullies, whether the were people, churches, organizations, governments, or whatever— took things from us.
Sometimes they took language from us.
Sometimes they took activities from us.
Sometimes they took whole chunks of our identity.
What I mean when I say they “took things from us” is, after we’ve been through trauma, there tend to be things that we don’t want to think about, get near, engage with, or identity with, because they remind us of our abusers or abuse.
Sometimes it’s something as simple as a word.
Sometimes it’s an activity that we might otherwise find fun or meaningful.
Sometimes it’s music.
Sometimes it’s an identification with a family or tribe of some sort.
The list of things trauma takes from us includes big and little things— and rarely a day goes by when we are not cognizant of trauma having taken something away from us.
There are multiple moving part to trauma recovery, but I believe an important part is reclaiming what we choose to take back.
I believe it really maters that we feel realistically able to claim and own and engage with things that are pleasurable or meaningful to us— even (especially!) after the’ve been “tainted” by our abusers.
It’s true that many survivors in recovery define ourselves by what we aren’t— namely, we are not our abusers.
Most survivors work really hard to be better people, better parents, better morally and spiritually and emotionally than the people who hurt us.
Who we AREN’T tends to be such a huge part of our trauma recovery identity, that sometimes we can lose perspective on the fact that there may be things that we’re rejecting that actually have nothing to do with our abusers per se— and which we might actually value.
I just don’t believe in letting abusers and bullies limit who we can be and what we can do.
Most of us have spent far too long tiptoeing through life like navigating a minefield— and make no mistake, emotionally and psychologically, that’s absolutely what many of us have been doing.
Maybe reclamation for you looks like choosing to use words in a particular way that is authentic to you, but which got corrupted by an abuses’s habits of expression.
(Welcome to why I so often use profanity in my writing.)
Maybe reclamation for you looks like exploring or practicing a spatial path that an abuser poisoned for you once upon a time.
Maybe reclamation for you looks like getting reacquainted with music that actually moves you, but which got associated with pain for you once upon a time.
I’ve said it before: trauma recovery is a search and rescue operation.
Think of reclamation as one of the most important ways we reestablish who we are and what we’re all about— and one of the most important ways we keep from being controlled by our abusers and bullies every day.
Use Your Damn Skills 