Latest / Thinking Out Loud | Kimberly / Can Trauma Become a Way to Belong? | Thinking Out Loud
Transcript
- Kimberly: Can trauma become a way to belong? I think sometimes the answer is yes. I think sometimes pain becomes a place where we finally feel understood. if you've spent years feeling dismissed, ignored, blamed, or emotionally alone, finding people who understand your experience can feel life-saving. The problem is that healing and belonging aren't always the same thing. Sometimes we're processing our pain. Sometimes we're building our identity around it. And sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. Today I want to talk about that line. The line between healing and ruminating, between accountability and resentment, between caring your own story and living inside of it. Because I know how easy it is to get stuck there. I spent years revisiting the same wound, researching for understanding, validation, and answers. While some of that was necessary for my healing, eventually I had to ask myself a difficult question, who am I if my pain is no longer the thing that introduces me to the world? Hi, it's me Kimberly. before we go any further, quick note this podcast is for reflection and conversation, not professional advice. Take what resonates, leave what doesn't, and listen in a way that feels supportive for you. I know I'm personally been guilty of ruminating over my own trauma, reliving the same pain, the same story, the same belief. I can understand why people get stuck there. When pain isn't acknowledged, when emotions are dismissed, or when vulnerabilities is met with shame, our minds naturally keep returning to it. We search for understanding, for certainty, for validation that what happened to us mattered. Sometimes we hold on to the story because it's the only thing that ever made our pain feel visible. I think a lot of us were taught to disconnect from ourselves in order to survive. To minimize, to rationalize, to call ourselves dramatic instead of admitting, I shared something vulnerable with someone who didn't have the capacity to hold it. Somehow blaming ourselves can feel safer than accepting that someone else failed us emotionally. I once heard someone describe shame like this. Imagine living in a village where survival depends on hunting and gathering. A hunter goes out all day and comes back with nothing. and still the village welcomes them back. Still values them, still recognizes their efforts because trying matters. Now imagine the opposite. The hunter comes back empty handed and is told they're a failure. They're not comforted, they're not encouraged, they're shamed. Then the next day they succeeded, and instead of being celebrated, they hear, Well, it's the least you could do. Over time, what happens to that person? What happens when love, safety, and belonging feels conditional? Most people want community. people want to feel valid. Most people want their efforts to be acknowledged. Most people want some kind of emotional safety or certainty in their lives. What happens when your sense of worth becomes completely dependent on what other people think of you? What happens when the people you turn to during moments of struggles aren't emotionally safe? Or worse, what happens when they were never safe to begin with? There's something deeply destabilizing about constantly being told just do better, just communicate, just try harder. Only to finally do those things and still be told you did it wrong. No clear explanation, no guidance, no emotional consistency, Just constantly shifting expectations that make you feel like you're always feeling some invisible test. And after a while, you stop trusting yourself. You start overanalyzing everything, every reaction, every tone shift and every mistake. You become hyperaware of other people's emotions while losing connection to your own. Because when acceptance feels unpredictable, your nervous system starts treating belonging like something you have to earn instead of something that is part of belonging, part of community, real community. I remember feeling like that doom scrolling, but with my trauma. I'd get triggered, I'd get overwhelmed, and eventually the pressure would build until I exploded. like when a mento drops into a soda. And when that happens, I would trauma dump. Not because I wanted attention, not because I wanted pity. Because I was desperate for someone to listen. Desperate for someone to say what happened to you was wrong. And sometimes I got that response. Other times I scared people away. Sometimes people pitied me in the moment only to later weaponize my pain against me. And then there were the rare precious people. The ones who had emotional capacity to sit with me in it. Not fix it. Not silence me. gave me kindness while showing me what I could have done better. They let me process it without shoving my face in it. They let me be difficult sometimes without treating me like I was a burden. they endured years of spirals while still holding compassion for me, not enabling me, not pretending everything was okay. Just staying present. I think that kind of safety can feel unfamiliar when your nervous system is used to chaos, used to the inconsistency. Once you finally feel free, it can actually become tempting to repeat the cycle anyway. I became a little bit of a drama addict. I didn't understand what calm, routine safety felt like. My nervous system was accustomed to pain. It was hyper-vigilant. And honestly, I was filled with a lot of resentment. Because there was certainty in the chaos to a degree. in a sense that chaos was my order. It felt easier to stay angry at people who hurt me than to accept that holding on to that anger was slowly poisoning me and expecting them to get it. I thought staying angry would somehow bring justice. How could it? I thought maybe they'd see my anger. They did see my anger, and that's all they ever see. They didn't see the pain. They didn't see the harm they cause. And because I was angry, they didn't care. Because it wasn't Instagram presentable. The people who hurt me weren't reflecting. They weren't questioning themselves. Many of them probably don't even care. you can hear how people talk about you by the phrases they use. Overreacting, too sensitive, using buzzwords. That never happened. I guess I'm just the worst person ever. they're always making themselves the victim. They're such a narcissist. You need to let it go. I already apologize. What more do you want? You're remembering it wrong. That's just how I am. People often tell on themselves. They tell you who they are. They tell you what they care about. They tell you sometimes, not even just who they are, but where they're coming from. Are they coming from a place of their pain? Or are they coming from a place of wanting connection? And I'm guilty of this too. It's often not only the words themselves that are causing the problem. It's the lack of curiosity behind them, the lack of accountability, the lack of genuine desire to understand how their actions impact someone else. And I think it's because when you start feeling like things are an obligation, not choices that you've made, parentinghood can look like that too. It can look like your kids are being needy when in actuality Your kids are just expressing age appropriate needs. Or if they're not, they're showing that they were stunted in their development and not allowed to develop One of the things that I've been reflecting on is maybe teenagers aren't actually as bad as people in society has made them out to be. Maybe when they were in those terrible twos or t three majors season in life, they were never allowed to be upset about stuff. Because when looking back in my own life and watching my kids develop, it is incredibly frustrating when you are learning how to articulate yourself as a three-year-old and not be able to express yourself. Or you really want that toy so we treat these children they're disrespectful when in reality they're expressing a genuine need. we have power over people and we don't think about it. sometimes with our own trauma, we can repeat the cycle. sometimes you're doing the same thing your own parent did to you. It just looks different. Because people causing harm are usually the ones holding more power in the relationship. Parent over child, older siblings over the younger ones, a husband over the wife, a teacher over a student, a boss over an employee, A socially acceptable group over in a marginalized one. Those people sometimes wonder why connection starts disappearing. Why their children stop visiting? Why their partners emotionally withdraw. why younger siblings avoid the older ones? Why people at the bottom of the dynamic stop wanting to be the bigger person. Because responsibility was never equal. The power was never equal. And people who truly understand this, are actively trying to empower others, They're usually the ones that aren't lonely. They recognize the power imbalances. They notice who has less safety. less of a voice, less social protection, less ability to leave. They understand what powerlessness feels like. And because of that, They don't want to recreate it in others. They uplift children, women, disabled people, the poor, the widows, the orphans, the marginalized communities. People who are grieving, people who are struggling, people who have less social or emotional power in situations. People who understand what it means the meek will inherit the earth. Because only then when we care about those who are struggling, who feel powerless, is when society does get better. Not because the groups are incapable of harm. We know this, Any human can cause harm. rather statistically and structurally, power is not distributed equally. I think healing requires us to be honest when reflecting on both sides of that truth, not just watching all these criminal documentaries and saying, ooh, who's the bad guy? Who's the good guy? Maybe the real question not even what made them do it. They were always capable of it. Anyone who has power over someone else, we can always squash the ant. How many of us are going around though trying to kill ants on purpose? I think that's a better question to really reflect on. Because that's how cycles continue. Not just where We were powerless instead where we hold power and we don't acknowledge it. I think that's why trauma and cycles continue. A child grows up, abused, and later mistreats their own children. A son grows into a man who harms his partner because pain taught him control instead of emotional safety. A mother repeats the same wound and then normalizes it to her own children. older siblings bullying the younger sibling because no one has ever acknowledged the imbalance. Hurt people can hurt people. Healing people can interrupt the cycle. Healing means recognizing where we're bleeding onto others, where our fear, resentment, and our unresolved pain is turning into control, cruelty, and emotional neglect. Sometimes people dismiss conversations about power imbalances because they point to the exceptions. Yes, women can harm their husbands. Yes, children can harm their parents. Yes, marginalized people can cause harm too. Of course they can. Any person is capable of harming another person. The exception doesn't erase pattern. If we ignore large patterns because exceptions exist, we stop addressing the environment where harm is likely to happen repeatedly. We act shocked when we hear about horrible things done to children. When they're happening all the time and we don't blink twice. We act shocked when women don't feel safe to get help. For domestic violence when it's been happening for a very long time. We act shocked when people snap and hurt each other because they were never protected. their own parents were bullying them, their own siblings were bullying them, and then they go to school, where's the break? Real healing isn't about reversing who gets to hold power. It's about creating relationships, families and communities where power isn't used to dominate people in the first place. We have to know what harm looks like. the brothers Grim Fairy Tale made that very clear. They gave us language for abuse. They gave us stories. They gave us examples. Buzzwords, as we call them, gave us exact definitions for what is happening in certain dynamics, what behavior is happening. And if we want to create a better place, that's where children are protected. Women feel safe and capable. Vulnerable people feel that they have support. Accountability exists without dehumanization. Consequences are focused on rehabilitation when possible instead of simply repeating cycles of harm. If we never reflect on how power works personally, socially, emotionally, then people continue finding ways to gain control by suppressing someone else. And this is why cycles repeat. How do we even stop it? How? I think part of it is start to being honest about what hurts us, even before we have the language to describe it, about where we still are carrying resentment and acknowledging that why do we need to keep carrying it? where do we hold power now? the ways fear can make us justify causing pain to others. Healing asks us to face uncomfortable truths. to hold people accountable when evidence supports harm. To listen carefully, to stay curious, to avoid things turning pain into permission to dehumanize others. You're allowed to stick up for yourself. You're allowed to defend yourself. I think the best advice that I got in the process of how do we navigate being true to who we are and still stick up for ourselves because we're allowed to say no. We're allowed to say I will not sign up for this. You're allowed to hang up the phone. You're allowed to not return the text. You're allowed to block people who have done harm. Sometimes we create excuses, but really we always had the reason why we needed to take a space and walk away. to hold people accountable The goal should be making sure we stop passing it forward. And I think that's really what it means to do better. we have to be aligned with who we are. we have to put ourselves into check. And I've seen people recognize injustice in their own lives and genuinely try to empower others because of it. I don't think that's entirely wrong. Patterns do exist, power imbalances exist, cycle of abuse exists. Statistically, people often are identifying real And repeated dynamics of harm. I also think there is a place where we can miss the mark. While patterns are real, people are still individuals. Not every conflict is narcissism, not every misunderstanding is abuse, and not every harmful interaction comes from a malice intent. Sometimes people are operating from beliefs they were conditioned into and are struggling to unravel that. Sometimes people genuinely lack emotional awareness, seen not heard, I'll beat you if you disrespect me. People who had to endure a lot of that, I'm not surprised of their lack of emotional awareness. that genuinely comes from a place of that must have been very painful growing up. growing up in those situations to have a reactive or caregiver, that must have been hard. Sometimes people truly do not understand the impact they're having because of it too. is where I resonate. If you never hold space for yourself and your own feelings when you have been harmed and it was so normalized, how are you going to reflect and see that it hurts other people? I think that's where the line is between self-abandonment and becoming judge, jury, and executioner. You don't have to be the judge, the jury, and the executioner You're really trying to become aligned with yourself is what I've discovered in healing. You're trying to learn how to live again. why do you need a witch hunt? To validate your pain. punishment is is not accountability. Condemning people is not problem solving. I've had to ask myself those questions too. My healing journey started because brave people were willing to tell their stories and they didn't need a villain. I wanted to heal. I wanted to figure out how do I get there. when people can't fully relate But they can hold space for you to process it, that should matter it does get scary if you feel exposed. And maybe a lot of us reject feeling seen because if my own family can't do that for me, what do you mean a random stranger I met on a Tuesday can love and accept me in the way my family could never do? And I've seen this pattern with people who are five, ten, twenty, forty years later holding on to the same pain and wound, reliving it, searching for villains and unable to move forward. For me, I had to ask myself, what do I want for my life? What do I want to become? Do I wanna be someone who Is trapped in resentment forever, or do I want to become someone who understands what happened to me was wrong and still able to move forward? Do I want to keep hurting people while convincing myself I was only protecting my pain? Do I want my identity to revolve around people who harmed me? Or do I want to become someone who can genuinely move forward? Someone who can forgive themselves for trusting people who are unsafe. I wanna be careful though because I'm speaking about my own tendencies. I'm talking about pain I could see myself holding on to if I never reflected on my own patterns. I don't have to sit in that anymore. I'm learning what healing really means you can let people go. Not letting go like fuck you, It's more I think I'm done with this chapter in my life. Because the people who relate to that feeling, I want to say this. You're allowed to pause the side quest. You can get back to the main quest of your healing journey whenever you're ready. And it's okay if it takes you five years, ten years, twenty years, forty years, or most of your life. There's no shame in realizing you're finally ready to stop surviving and you want to start learning what it means to live again. To develop the things in your life that got stunted. Part of why I don't publicly name the people who hurt me is because I don't want my story centered around them. I want to honestly be able to stay like Snoop Jog joked once. I want to thank me. Because yes, harm impacted me. Yes, some people cause detours in my life. Some people cause me immense pain. They are not the reason I healed. I am. I chose to sit with the pain. I chose to reflect on my own darkness, my own limits, and my own unhealthy patterns. I choose to keep healing. I choose to take accountability for ways I was bleeding onto others. I choose the painful work of healing and that matters. I did that. Only I could truly decide to do that for myself. Now, did some people make it easier for me? Absolutely. Sometimes unconditional love is enough. What it truly means. Having someone who believes in you. having people who held space for my trauma made the burden feel less isolating and more hopeful. Because trauma isolates people. Pain can convince you that no one will understand you. No one will stay. That you'll always carry everything alone. And carrying that kind of emotional weight for years can absolutely lead to burnout. It can leave you exhausted, hyper-vigilant, emotionally overwhelmed. And I think healing slowly begins when you stop believing, how do I stay inside of this pain forever? And you start asking yourself, Well, how do I carry on with what happened to me without letting it become my entire identity? And I think once we start there. A lot changes. trauma can become a way to belong? Pain becomes the language we use to connect, the proof that what happened mattered, the bridge that finally makes us feel less alone. And in the beginning, that can absolutely be part of healing. there's nothing wrong with that. Telling the truth matters, being believed matters, healing with people who make you feel safe, matters, having safe people witness your pain matters. healing asks something deeper from us eventually. Not to erase what happens, not to pretend we were never hurt, not to force forgiveness or silence ourselves, but to slowly ask who am I outside of my pain? Who am I? When I am no longer only surviving, because there is a difference between carrying your story and living inside of it forever. and building your entire identity around who harmed you. There is a difference between finding community and only feeling connected through shared resentment. I don't think healing means never talking about trauma again. I think it means your pain stops being the only thing that introduces you to the world, and it means learning how to hold grief without letting it consume your identity. You are not just the person who is abused, you are you. And it means recognizing where you were powerless while also becoming aware of where you hold power now. It means refusing to let pain turn into permission to harm others, and maybe most importantly, Realizing you deserve a life bigger than what happened to you. A life where joy exists, where rest exists, where connection isn't built only through suffering, where you can build your own routine your own consistency and you can be aligned with who you want to be. Because you are more than the worst things that happen to you. You are more than your survival story. healing was never meant to turn you into a permanent monument of your pain. It was meant to help you return to yourself.