Wisdom from the Trenches

While walking through the highs and lows of processing difficult trauma, I hit a stage of grief that many call bargaining. But since I know I can’t rewrite the past, I don’t like to call it that. Bargaining suggests that I have some leveraging power to change my situation through negotiation. In the aftermath of trauma, I really don’t. I can’t go back in time and change how things unfolded. I can’t go back and relive it differently because I wouldn’t possess the knowledge I have now (nor would I want to go back and relive it!). I can’t change the past. I can’t negotiate out of my present reality by petitioning God. But knowing this didn’t stop the wishful thinking, the alternate reality, or the self condemnation from creeping in.

As much as I don’t like referring to this stage as “bargaining”, it doesn’t mean I didn’t walk through this as I grieved the loss of my innocence; the damage done to my body, mind and soul; and the resulting pain and difficulties that surfaced in my life because of trauma. This stage for me looked less like bargaining and more like dwelling on what might have been, imagining my world without evil ripping it to shreds, and clinging to that fantasy. For me, this stage was ruled by three evil geniuses: “I Wish”, “What If”, and, perhaps the worst tyrant of all, “If Only”.

Back then, the torrent of thoughts would swarm me: I wish I didn’t have PTSD. I wish I could forget what happened. I wish the nightmares would go away. “I Wish” was rooted firmly in my present circumstances, concerned with changing undesirable parts of my reality. Wishes that came to me seemed so unattainable that they might as well have been from fairy tales. While I entertained wishes as I walked through this stage of grief, the thing that hurt the worst for me was that I knew it wasn’t within my control. I couldn’t change my diagnosis by simply wishing it away. Try as I might, I couldn’t block memories of that fateful night. And lying in my bed at night, unconscious and most vulnerable, I couldn’t choose where my mind wandered. “I Wish” preyed upon me, to hope and hold out for something that simply cannot be. It held me hostage in my present by monopolizing my faith and aiming my focus toward something that would always continually disappoint, because the change I was hoping for was ultimately not based in reality. It provided false hope.

Nothing in life can sting quite as badly as the thought of what might have been, and yet, will never be. What if that person had not hurt me? What if this trauma had never occurred? What if I hadn’t joined the Army? What if I had pushed harder for justice? These thoughts seem like they focus on the past…but, while they build on a change in the past, these thoughts aim all the focus toward a magical future, a world far different than my present reality. If things had not broken down in the past, my reality would be radically altered, right? “What If” wants me to imagine that alternate reality – and then live completely enthralled by this unreachable, impossible future. It wants me to be lost, staring into an abyss that might have been possible…but isn’t. It pushes me to imagine how life could be, had certain things not happened. But how do I actually know that what I imagine could even be true? If that awful thing had not happened, all of the hard things I have come through would disappear and, with it, all of the lessons I have learned from living through pain would also disappear. I most certainly would not be who I am now because I would not have ever faced difficulty. And who can say that another tragedy would not have fallen upon me that would have been equally (or far more) devastating? “What If” capitalizes on imagination to captivate me and hold me hostage by a cheap substitute of my destiny, my purpose, or my real future. It provides a false perspective. My imagination is limited to the existence of only ideal circumstances, a world where everything happens perfectly, which is not reality.

But the worst of all of these were the “If Only” statements that beat, whipped, humiliated, and abused me. If only I hadn’t opened the door. If only I hadn’t said hello in the first place. If only I had fought harder, screamed louder, knew better. “If Only” solely existed to torture me with my perceived failures in my past. Innocent choices I had made were thrown in my face as if they were massive sins. Choices I can never change replayed in my head, a constant reminder, through the lens of hindsight, that I had screwed up, insinuating that I was only in my current condition because I had made poor decisions. “If Only” took my regrets miles from their starting point and hurled them over the Cliff of Condemnation. Every scathing statement that crossed my mind was rooted firmly in a perceived failure of mine in the past. “If Only” twisted the facts, inserted a distorted fiction, set my mind on fire, and took delight in watched me burn. If I did something wrong and decided that it resulted in this incident, then surely I can secure a better outcome if I encounter this in the future simply by making different choices. This provides a false sense of control.

How did I make it through this stage of the grieving process? I have no advice for you, my friends, because I made it through this the same way I made it through all the other challenges that grief brings: by going through it.

Grief is messy. It’s painful. It’s scary.

But also meditative. Purposeful. Survivable.

For those of you who face it in full force today, my heart goes out to you. You are stronger than you know right now, but you need not face this alone. Others are willing to come alongside you. We are here for you.