November Blue

“What about your mom? I never hear you talk about her – where does she live?”

I realize my friend has no idea my mom is dead. I met my friend about six months prior to this conversation and we hang out almost weekly at this point. I’d consider her to be one of my newest, close friends.

But she didn’t know my mom had died. How could that be?

Well – it’s kind of a weird thing to bring up to a person, ya know?

“Hey, I moved to here last fall...I’m a nurse practitioner...I’m a writer...I have three dogs...Crossfit is my jam...I like beer...my mom died of cancer in 2014.”

Doesn’t really roll off the tongue.

So here we are, enjoying a nice summer night hanging out at a baseball game and I’m giving her the tragic Reader’s Digest version of what happened to my mom.

It ruined the vibe momentarily until I awkwardly apologize for ruining said vibe (yes, apologize because how dare my mom die, right?) and we move on to another topic.

This scenario has happened where I’m on the receiving end of something heavy – someone shares they’ve encountered trauma and now they’re sharing it with me. Death of family member or partner, miscarriage, sexual trauma, domestic abuse – these are all traumas which have been shared with me – and most likely have been shared with you. No one makes it out of this world unscathed by tragedy.

It makes me wonder what the best way to share – and receive – traumatic stories with new (and old) friends.

We live in a society where everyone wants to be self-aware, tolerant, sensitive – no one wants to offend or hinder anyone. And that’s great. I think to be aware that the world is bigger than our world can’t be a bad thing. I also think it can create a society where people are nervous to share experiences and even afraid to share messy, authentic feelings about certain things because they don’t want to offend or trigger someone. This nervous and fearful energy can stem from many sources, places which can vary from person to person.

Send Me Your Bio

When we meet new people, we don’t have an autobiography magically sent over to them. There’s no push notification which lists our interests, achievements, goals, and trauma. Being in the internet age of Facebook, Instagram, and online dating – we’ve been programmed to receive these blurbs. I should know where you went to school, what your profession is, who the top five people you interact with, and where you went on vacation last summer.

I’ve found this leads to stunted sharing. We don’t vocalize IRL (in real life) certain things because we assume someone saw it online.

My coworker’s grandfather passed away and this happened during my once a decade hiatus from Facebook. She showed up to my office with a tear-streaked red face and just looked at me. A look I couldn’t interpret without her eventually telling me what had happened.

If I’d maintained my hourly Facebook check, I would have seen that her grandfather had been sick, was in the hospital for several days, and eventually passed away. We are Facebook friends, we engage with each other often. I hadn’t made a public post saying “hey Facebook – I’m gone for a while” so she didn’t know my connection had been momentarily severed.

I felt bad for not knowing right away. I felt bad that she had to tell me why she was upset. But why? Why did I feel like a hindrance in making her share with me directly? What did we do before we could post a status to share heavy shit?

I guess people called.

It’s Not That Bad

Why share trauma? Trauma is something everyone experiences in their lifetime, in some form or another.

Trauma is also subjective – meaning it is subject to change. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum or in little vials that get handed out affecting people equally and objectively. Your past trauma doesn’t affect my trauma – your trauma shapes who you are – not me. Just like family, friends, education, and success shape our lives – trauma leaves it's mark as well. So many people brush their trauma off, and by brush – I mean neglect because they feel it’s not as bad as someone else’s and they don’t deserve to process.

Let that sink in. People will refuse to process their trauma because it’s not the most tragic thing they’ve heard of.

“I shouldn’t complain, there are so many people that have it worse off than me.”

“I should be thankful, I know someone else who is dealing with the most awful thing.”

We’ve all heard it and most of us have said it. But the truth is, saying your trauma doesn’t matter in comparison makes no sense. It’s not a contest. The fact you had a bad day doesn’t make my bad day less or worse bad. You’re allowed to have negative emotions completely separate from mine.

People use this viewpoint to try and lift themselves up, and that can be helpful – but like most things – you can overuse it. Just because the Holocaust and 9/11 happened, doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to feel shitty from time to time.

I see this a lot with my cancer patients. They feel like crap, they look like crap – but most days I hear the familiar “I shouldn’t complain, I sit in the treatment room and see so many people sicker than me”. Sure, they may feel or look worse than you. Their cancer may not be curable like yours. They may have lost their hair when you didn’t because you’re getting a different chemotherapy regimen – but it still sucks to have cancer.

I do my best to convince patients to give themselves permission to recognize their trauma. They’re allowed to be blue, feel bad, and even get grumpy. Fighting those emotions because you feel guilty you’re not the sickest person in the building serves no one and is hella exhausting.

We’ve also been programmed to put that smile on and dust off the tears – no need to burden anyone with your sadness, right?

Social Media Enables Aversion

I know social media tells us to throw a filter on it and make that happy post. We see the Buzzfeed trends that sharing positivity gets more traffic and action. I also know this philosophy creates a lot of unrealistic expectations we put upon ourselves.

We’ve moved the Jones’ out of the suburbs and placed them in our Facebook feed and Instagram story. We’re no longer walking down the sidewalks looking at Mr. Jones’ new car and perfectly manicured lawn. We’re not seeing Mrs. Jones’ perfect apple pie in the window or new china in the dining room.

Now we see the car, the vacation, the new promotion from the comfort of our smart devices. We see the fitness model and perfect makeup contour while lying in bed scrolling.

There has been a recent shift (at least in my social media echo chamber) to being more authentic about our bodies and mental health. But it’s still all through a filtered lens. Even the #nofilter post was a picture taken a few times to get the angle just right.

Social media is great for creating a community to interact with and stay connected to. I’ve made new friends through social media, restored old friendships, as well as found many of the products I use today by way of marketing tools on social media. There’s no denying it brings people together.

But there has to be an acknowledgment this sense of community can sometimes be a false persona.

If I post I’ve had a bad day – that’s really authentic of me. I’ll get some likes, some hearts, and probably some encouraging comments on there. But I may or not get direct messages or texts checking up on me. Even if I do – those people are reaching out to me personally even when I didn’t reach out to them personally.

Posting doesn’t require looking anyone in the eye or even their face.

Posting doesn’t require speaking on the phone and hearing instant reactions.

Posting – although seemingly more vulnerable – is actually less intrusive.

I’m not potentially ruining anyone’s mood by telling them I feel like shit. I’m not forcing someone to directly respond to me when I say I really miss my mom today or I had to have a tough conversation with a patient at work.

By not doing this, I’m not inconveniencing anyone. Because ya know – they may be having a harder day than me, ok? I even find myself preventing myself from sharing a story with someone because if they saw it on IG or FB – I don’t want to repeat myself to them. But the thing is, I never said anything to them. I put it online for anyone to read or not read, to react or not react.

The harm in doing this though is by not sharing to someone individually, you lose the opportunity for an individual and specific response. You can’t get the emotional feedback you actually need. You can’t share the weight of those feelings with anyone. So they just sit there, in your post, collecting likes and well wishes on display.

All Things Real Must Be Shared

Humans are communal creatures. That’s part of what makes us human – we long to share.

Share space, share things, share experiences with others. Christopher McCandless was the young man who ventured to the wilderness of Alaska and inspired the book Into the Wild. He eventually died after being on his own for 114 days, living in an abandoned school bus and eating the wrong poisonous berry. Alaskans tend to dislike him because tourists go looking for that school bus outside of Fairbanks and inevitably get stuck and have to be rescued by the Air National Guard.

Like him or not, he wrote in his journal something which I love:

Happiness is only real when shared.

This was written by someone who spent a year or so on his own, moving around the country and then ultimately lived the last 114 days of his life completely alone. Someone facing their mortality and in their deepest life reflection – acknowledged that it’s all for nothing if not shared.

I love solo adventures and my alone time – trust me as an only child I cherish it. But happiness and joy in life are often the richest and most rewarding when shared with people you care about.

If happiness is only real when shared, wouldn’t the same be true for trauma? I know it sounds weird and I know misery loves company. But that’s not what I mean.

I’m talking about what comes after a traumatic event. You don’t learn from experience, you learn from reflecting upon experience. Most of us aren’t trying to settle into sadness, cherishing the suck.

We’re trying to heal.

We’re trying to understand.

We’re trying to get back that happiness.

Catch 22

Maybe that’s why we avoid sharing trauma. If we share it, it does become real.

I waited a really long time to tell my friends my boyfriend was cheating on me. I knew if I told them – the fact became more real. I couldn’t hide, neglect, or run away from his infidelity anymore if there were other people who knew. If I kept it to myself, I could recreate a reality that didn’t include him cheating on me.

But we all know burying our heads in the sand only works for so long. Eventually, we need to face the facts – and the realness – of what’s happened. And more times than not, once we share those feelings or events, we slowly start healing. Up until that point, it’s merely hanging there, smoldering, like a black hole that’s nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Emotions stuck in limbo. I’ve found it true for myself and for people close to me that although terrifying – once you share your trauma with someone you trust, you instantly feel less alone.

Phew! There. I said it. I said that no good terrible thing out loud and holy shit I’m exhausted. Aren’t you tired too? Man, that was heavy, sorry.

There’s that sorry again. That apologizing for exposing you to my trauma and sadness. But the thing is – that person wasn’t holding those emotions. They weren’t carrying that burden as you’ve been. Even if it was a shared trauma (death of a family member, accident, etc), their view is completely different and even if they’re tired from their internal grief – you offer a new lens for them. Something they’ve never seen before. They have fresh shoulders and eyes to help take some of the load from you.

And if you’ve picked some good people to be surrounded by, I bet they’re more than willing – and honored – you’d share the weight. The moment you share your trauma is not a moment where you ruin their time or increase their troubles. The moment you show your trust is the moment you deepen your relationship.

If We Must – How Do We Do It?

So how?

How do we safely share and receive trauma as we go through life?

You must not apologize.

Chances are you didn’t wake up one day thinking it was a great day to be traumatized. So why apologize? Your friends and family don’t expect your real life to be filters and happy hashtags. If someone can’t handle your truth or experiences, it may be time to reevaluate that relationship.

You must own your emotions – even if you don’t know what they are yet.

If you share an event such as a parent or spouse dying – be prepared to share how that is affecting you. I used to look away or mumble ‘thanks’ when someone responded to my mom dying with “I’m so sorry”. I didn’t want to face their shock or awkwardness. But that just made everything awkward. Now I do my best to keep my head up and say “Yeah, me too. My mom was pretty awesome and I miss her.”

And in case you don’t know how you feel – not knowing is an equally acceptable answer. Saying something happened and you’re pretty confused and messed up about is valid emotion.

There’s so much focus on deconstructing things and root cause analysis. There’s not enough focus on accepting the mess for what it is – messy. Trauma isn’t neat and tidy, trauma doesn’t empty the dishwasher or take the trash out so why should we expect your emotional response is tied up in a neat bow?

It comes down to two basic facts:

When you share trauma, you’re sharing your truth
When you accept someone’s trauma, you’re being entrusted

That’s it. Trust is a major building block of any relationship. Trust is built and broken and shapes how we connect with people. If you look at it that way – why wouldn’t you want to discuss something that was traumatic? If you knew it would help build your relationship as opposed to being a hinderance worth apologizing for – maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to do?

There’s No Rule About Sharing

After all the above regarding the value in sharing – please know there is no rule saying you must share. Some things don’t need to be shared with someone or anyone, and that’s ok.

No one is obligated or entitled to your trauma.

I’ve fallen victim to this where I’ll get upset at a friend for not sharing something with me. I would feel like as their friend, I needed to know that so I could support them. But that’s not always the case or necessary. Maybe it was too traumatic for them to share before now. Maybe their trauma caused them to be more forgetful and not realize they hadn’t actually shared. So many reasons why someone may not choose to share and that is definitely their right.

Finding confidence in knowing you can share if you need to is healing. Finding comfort in knowing you don’t have to share is reassuring.

After Trauma Is Shared

So what happened to me and my friend at the ballgame? We’re still great friends and I’ve gotten better about sharing things. So has she. She’s told me things over the years which were painful and messy. We support each other in the hard and ugly. When we go camping I share stories about my mom growing up and our camper. She enjoys hearing about her and checks in on me when things come up that may be tough – like Mother’s Day and Christmas. She, in turn, shares her troubles with me from time to time and I do my best to be supportive to her.

Should I have told her earlier in our friendship that my mom had died? Not necessarily. What I do know now, is I can’t let the shame or messy of my trauma prevent me from sharing or hesitate.

There’s not a right or wrong time to bring trauma up. But what I hope to continue to be aware of is being hurt is an inevitable and unapologetic truth. How we process pain can’t be a journey of mere solitude. Sharing may come early or later in your healing process – but we must accept that sharing is part of healing.