Latest / UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth / EP 57 - Why Men Carry Trauma in Silence

Transcript

EP 57 - Why Men Carry Trauma in Silence · UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth

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  I think a lot of men learned how to survive before they ever
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  learned how to process pain. If we're honest, a lot of us got
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  rewarded for it, for staying calm, for being strong, for not
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  crying, for moving on quickly. So we learned how to function
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  while hurting. We learned how to show up
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  disconnected, how to smile while grieving, how to carry pain
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  without ever calling it pain. And eventually it just became
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  normal. Not healthy, not healed, just
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  normal. And I think there are men
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  listening right now who have been carrying something for
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  20-30, maybe even 40 years. And they've never really spoken
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  it out loud, not fully, not honestly, not in a room where
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  they felt safe enough to stop performing.
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  And so tonight, I want to sit with that for just a little
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  while. Welcome to Unmasked, where we
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  take off the filters and get real about faith, failure and
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  finding freedom. I'm your host, Wesley
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  Farnsworth, a dad, veteran, author, and a man who's learned
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  that God does his best work in the middle of our mess.
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  Each episode we have honest conversations with people who
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  have walked through addiction, pain, or doubt, and with
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  pastors, leaders, and everyday believers who are learning to
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  live and lead authentically. So take a breath, pull up a
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  chair, and let's get real. This is unmasked.
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  See, I don't think many men consciously decide to bury
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  trauma. I think we adapt.
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  And that's different because when you're young, you don't
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  always have the language for what you're feeling.
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  You just know that something hurts, something feels wrong,
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  something feels heavy, something changes inside of you.
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  And if nobody helps you process it, you learn to carry it
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  instead. And that's what a lot of men
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  become really good at carrying. Not healing, not grieving, not
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  processing, just carrying. And eventually people start
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  complimenting you for it. You're strong, you handled that
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  well, you seem OK, and the truth is, you're not OK at all.
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  You're just functioning. There's a difference.
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  Let that sit for a second, because a lot of men confused
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  functioning with healing. But functioning just means that
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  you kept moving. It doesn't mean that the wound
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  closed. See, when I was younger, I lost
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  my younger brother Steven to a car accident at the age of 16.
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  And honestly, I didn't really process it with anybody.
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  Not deeply, not honestly. I honestly didn't even know if I
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  could. And so I did what a lot of men
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  do. I carried it quietly.
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  I carried it around other people.
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  And for the most part, I acted like I was OK.
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  I kept moving, I kept functioning.
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  But when I was alone, that was a different story.
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  I'd cry, I'd breakdown. I feel the weight of it hit me
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  all over again, and eventually I'd pull myself back together
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  and go back into normal mode. And at the time I thought that
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  was strength. I thought strength meant
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  compartmentalizing, pushing through, holding it together,
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  not becoming a burden to other people.
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  But looking back now, I think a big part of me was just scared
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  of what would happen if I actually let myself feel it
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  fully. Because grief has a way of
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  opening doors and once those doors open, you realize that the
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  pain is bigger than the 1 moment.
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  I think a lot of men stay silent for a lot of different reasons.
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  Just like I had reasons. Some of it is culture, some of
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  it is pride, some of it is fear. But I also think a lot of men
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  genuinely don't know what to do with emotional pain, especially
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  if nobody has ever modeled it for them.
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  If you grew up around men who never talked about emotions,
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  never admitted weakness, never processed hurt, then silence
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  feels normal. Not because it's healthy, but
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  because it's familiar. So instead of processing trauma,
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  we manage it. We bury ourselves in our work,
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  We distract ourselves. We stay busy.
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  We numb out. Some men do it with anger, some
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  do it with isolation. Some do it with pornography,
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  some with alcohol, some with constant achievement.
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  But underneath a lot of the unhealthy behaviors, there's
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  usually unprocessed pain, pain that's been sitting there for
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  years. Here is something really
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  important. A lot of men never call their
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  experiences trauma because they think everyone else had it
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  worse, and so they minimize it. They say things like it wasn't
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  that bad, other people had harder lives.
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  I should be over it by now. But trauma is not just about
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  what happened to you. Sometimes it's about what never
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  happened for you. The affection that you never
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  received, the affirmation that you never heard, the emotional
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  safety that you never had. Sometimes trauma looks like
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  chaos. Sometimes it looks like
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  emotional neglect. Sometimes it looks like growing
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  up in a house where nobody talked about feelings.
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  And so you learned early that vulnerability was dangerous.
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  And that stuff doesn't just disappear because you became an
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  adult. It follows you.
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  It follows you into relationships, into leadership,
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  into fatherhood, into faith. It sticks with you because pain
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  that isn't processed doesn't stay contained.
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  It leaks out. It leaks into the way that you
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  react to criticism, the way you handle conflict, the way you
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  avoid intimacy, the way you shut down emotionally.
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  Sometimes you don't even realize that you're reacting from old
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  wounds. You just know that certain
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  things trigger something deep inside of you.
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  Maybe you've spent years calling it stress or personality, or
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  it's just how I am, but really there's a younger version of you
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  still carrying something heavy, still trying to survive
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  something, and he's calling out. I think a lot of men are tired
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  in way that they can't explain. Not physically, but internally.
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  They're tired from always managing themselves, tired from
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  suppressing emotion, tired from pretending that they're OK
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  because carrying pain silently takes energy.
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  A lot of energy, especially if you're trying to lead, provide,
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  protect, or show up for other people while quietly falling
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  apart inside. And eventually that silence
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  starts costing you. It costs connection, it costs
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  intimacy. It costs peace because people
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  can Only Connect deeply with the version of you that you're
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  willing to bring into the room. And if real pain never enters
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  the room, neither does the real you.
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  For me, a lot of this started changing when I entered
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  Celebrate Recovery. And honestly, that environment
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  changed me because suddenly I was in rooms where people were
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  being honest, really honest, not polished or filtered, and they
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  weren't performing. And over time, I started to
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  realize how much pain I had buried, not because I wanted to
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  deceive anybody, but because I genuinely thought that survival
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  was the same thing as healing. And I'm here to tell you, they
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  are not the same thing. That realization changed a lot
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  for me because once I actually started exploring grief and
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  actually talking about it and allowing myself to acknowledge
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  how deeply it affected me, it started becoming something.
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  It stopped becoming something I only carried alone.
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  And eventually it became a part of my testimony.
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  Not because it stopped hurting completely, but because it
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  stopped owning me silently. But here's the hard part.
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  For many men, honesty feels more dangerous than pain, because
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  pain becomes familiar. Vulnerability doesn't.
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  When you've spent years building an identity around being strong,
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  dependable, or composed, letting people see you hurt feels like
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  losing control. So you keep performing strength,
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  even when it's crushing you internally.
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  And the scary thing is, the longer you do that, the harder
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  it becomes to tell the difference between who you are
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  and where you've learned to pretend to be.
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  I think that we've misunderstood strength for a long time.
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  We treated emotional suppression like maturity.
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  But real strength isn't about pretending nothing affects you.
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  Real strength is about having the courage to tell the truth
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  about what did. That is harder.
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  Anybody can hide, anybody can deflect, anybody can shut down
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  emotionally. But it takes real courage to let
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  another human being see your pain without hiding behind
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  humor, anger, distraction, or performance.
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  That kind of honesty changes people, not overnight, but
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  deeply. One of the things I love about
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  Scripture is how unpolished so many people's emotions are.
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  In Scripture, you see grief, fear, anger, confusion.
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  You see people crying out honestly, not performing
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  spirituality and not pretending that they're unaffected.
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  They're just telling the truth. And I think a lot of men need
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  permission to realize the honesty is not weakness.
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  Let me say that again. Honesty is not weakness.
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  That is where healing starts. Not because talking magically
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  fixes everything, but because silence keeps wounds hidden.
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  Wounds rarely heal well. So I want to slow down here for
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  a second because I don't want you to miss this part because I
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  think there's a lot of men listening right now that have
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  spent years believing that they have moved on when in reality
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  they just moved forward. Those, my friends, are not the
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  same thing. Moving forward is external.
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  Healing is internal. You can build a career while
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  still bleeding emotionally. You can lead people while still
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  carrying unresolved pain. You can love God and still have
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  wounds that you haven't honestly faced.
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  And facing them doesn't make you weak, it makes you human.
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  I think one of the reason men avoid dealing with trauma is
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  because they're afraid to open the door.
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  They're afraid that if they do, everything will come flooding
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  out. And honestly, sometimes it does
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  feel overwhelming at first. Because buried pain does not
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  just disappear. It waits.
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  But here's what I've learned. Ignoring pain doesn't make it
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  smaller, it just makes it quieter and quiet.
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  Pain still shapes your life. You know, healing doesn't look
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  less dramatic. You know healing usually looks
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  less dramatic than people expect.
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  It often starts with just an honest conversation, just one,
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  one moment where you stop pretending, one room where you
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  feel safe enough to tell the truth.
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  And slowly, you realize that you don't have to carry everything
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  alone anymore. That doesn't mean that grief
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  disappears. It means the isolation starts
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  to. And that changes things.
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  So here's your action step. This week, I want you to ask
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  yourself this question honestly. What pain have I spent years
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  caring silently because I thought I had to?
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  Don't rush past that. I want you to sit with it.
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  And if someone safe comes to mind, a friend, mentor,
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  counselor, recovery group, pastor, you name it.
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  If somebody comes to mind, consider taking one small step
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  towards honesty this week. You don't have to go and share
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  your whole story, just share a part of it.
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  Take one honest step because healing usually doesn't begin
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  with a breakthrough. It begins with truth.
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  Thanks for joining me today on Unmasked.
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  If something in this episode spoke to you, don't let it stop
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  with you. Share with the one person that
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  God put on your heart while you were listening.
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  You never know whose breakthrough might start with
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  just a simple message from you. If you want more encouragement,
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  you want to work with me one-on-one, or you're interested
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  in having me speak at your church or event, you can find
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  everything you need to know at wesleyfarnsworth.com.
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  And make sure you join the Unmasked community by connecting
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  with me on social media so that we can keep walking this journey
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  together. Until next time, remember that
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  grace is greater than your past and real freedom, true freedom,
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  begins the moment that you choose to live unmasked.
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  God bless you.