“Why Do You Exist Here?” - The Gravity of Trauma and Leaving Orbit

In the first Deep Space Nine episode, The Emissary, Commander Sisko faces a transformative experience that helps him process a traumatic event in his life. He travels to a wormhole in which non-corporeal beings who exist outside of linear time live. In their interactions, they seek to understand what it means to be human. Commander Sisko attempts to explain linear time, and says that once a moment has passed, it no longer exists. Suddenly, Sisko is transported to a memory – the day his wife was killed. He becomes upset and demands to know why the beings brought him there. They respond, “We did not bring you here. You exist here.” Perplexed, he tells them he doesn’t want to be there. They continue to inquire, “Then why do you exist here?” This question halts Commander Sisko, and meaningful self-reflection begins.

When working to heal from complex trauma, the question is often asked, “Why is it so hard for me to stop doing things that are harming me, and so hard to start and stay with things that are good for me?” It is a fair question because I think we all inherently want to be happy and healthy and have fulfilling lives and thriving relationships with ourselves and others. Context is incredibly important when thinking about this question and its many possible answers. The context of complex trauma is one that is sometimes present and can contribute to a repeating pattern of staying with behaviors, habits, and relationships that hurt us, and why it is such a challenge for some of us to develop and persist with healthy, life-giving behaviors, habits and relationships. There are other reasons that people may experience this phenomenon – but this article will address this dynamic through the lens of complex trauma.

No one can say for another person what was traumatic. When something is traumatizing, we are saying that the system has been utterly overwhelmed, which leads to an internal split between the traumatized part of the psyche and the part that continues on living in survival mode (Fisher, 2019). Recent research in trauma theory has shown that it is the ongoing effect on the person’s nervous system that actually defines whether something has been traumatic (See: The Body Keeps the Score by van der Kolk). This is why two people can experience similar things and one might be traumatized while the other is not.

Trauma that is not addressed effectively can leave a sustained traumatic response in the nervous system as a result of experiences that overwhelmed a person’s ability to cope. As a result of this overwhelm, survival responses are chosen by the nervous system with its thousands of years of instinctive wisdom to withstand and live through many instances or a general daily presence of real threat. The nervous system remains mobilized for threat, and builds its behaviors, thoughts, and emotional patterns around the presence of threat. The self-system adapts to its circumstances, and lifelong patterns are put in place. Usually, these patterns are either hyperactivation or hypoactivation.

Hyperactivation includes hypervigilance, obsessive thinking, feeling unsafe, nervousness, quick and intense emotional reactions, impulsivity, addictive acting out, an overwhelming desire to do something, racing heart, tense muscles. Hypoactivation usually mimics persistent depressive disorder and can show up with symptoms like difficulty finding motivation, going through the motions of life, physical exhaustion, weakness, shaking/trembling, nausea, freezing in place, shrunken emotional range, and dissociation (Fisher, 2019). These survival behaviors, over time, can eclipse a person’s identity. They become the survival of what happened to them. Like Commander Sisko, the person exists in the trauma scene. The trauma story becomes the narrative of the life in place of a true life lived from one’s unique self.

For Commander Sisko, since his wife was killed, the emotional muscle memory was to live dissociated, do his duty, but feel no passion or engagement. He became disconnected from a sense of purpose and his life and attitude toward life reflected that. He held onto what happened, looked for people to blame for it, and allowed his own joy to drain away. For other people with their unique response to trauma, it could look different. Some people replay trauma through destructive relationships, desperately hoping the story will play differently, but because the trauma has not been healed, the relationships repeat the wounding like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A traumatic impact on the self-system can cause a person to automatically see what hurts as normal and familiar; even when they are doing it to themselves. People suffering with the effects of trauma move toward behaviors that hurt or neglect self, because the story they are living is a narrative of being hurt or neglected. They unconsciously follow the gravity of the trauma story toward that which will replay it. Even though repeating the emotional muscle memory does not produce health and happiness, it matches the formative impression made upon the person’s psyche about who they are and how life works. Congruence between the inner world and outer world is reached, and the cycle continues. The self-system continues to function in survival mode. This isn’t something “wrong” with a traumatized person. It is something unhealed.

Many of us have confused notions about what it means to be loved and cared about. Many of us were loved and cared for by people who had discrepancies between what they said and did. We may have had a mother or father who said, “I love you” to us, and then abandoned or neglected us, giving us confused ideas about love. Thus, that pattern feels like love – the only love we know. Some of us may have been cared for by people who provided for our needs and said they loved us, but simultaneously abused or mistreated us. That then, becomes our idea of love….

~Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go

The beings in the wormhole helped Commander Sisko see that it was his nervous system that kept him there, existing in the moment of his traumatic loss. Prior to that, he thought he was living, thinking, deciding…but it was his traumatized nervous system doing those things.

Through the story of Commander Sisko, we can see an example of how transformation out of a trauma response can indeed happen. The nervous system wants to function as it was designed and is capable of being repatterned (Johnson, 2021). Commander Sisko has help from magical beings to awaken to reality and return to his life in the present. While we might not have such acute, paranormal experiences, there is help around us, too. We can learn about the gravity of trauma and its effects, and also learn about what it takes to overcome that gravity and find a new orbital pattern elsewhere. The first step, so beautifully shown in Sisko’s journey, is to truly embrace the idea that we have been existing there, in the trauma. Once we do this and begin to let that realization breathe with the Living Universe, we can find our way to releasing the emotional muscle memory.

Because the nervous system is stuck in survival mode and sees everyday life as a potential mine field of threats, moving toward healthy behaviors (self-love, safety, self-compassion) that do not match the internalized trauma story requires the most monumental effort. To go against the gravity of the emotional muscle memory that perpetually attempts to play out takes enormous persistence, strength, assistance, endurance, and creativity. It also takes acceptance that the trauma story is slow to give up its place in the self-system. This means the process of healing is a long and winding road. Even if the person wants to be healthy, loved, harmonious, and free, there is strong gravity toward continuing to live the trauma story. It takes time, support, and consistency to build a true story of self and make it active enough to compete with the emotional muscle memory of the trauma story that has been told for years.

Defying the Gravity of Trauma

We can use the metaphor of a space shuttle launch to help us see what it takes to engage in health-producing habits and wellness practices, and stay with them. We need three main things to leave the emotional and behavioral atmosphere produced by traumatic experiences and repeated by the patterns that started long ago:

·       Ship

·       The ability to fly the ship

·       Fuel

The Ship

In our metaphor, the ship is a person’s identity. Often, because the trauma story eclipses the authentic identity and replaces it with survival behaviors, people recovering from trauma must go through the process of remembering, discovering and building a sense of self that is not rooted in the trauma story. There are many creative ways to go about this work in therapy or on one’s own. A solid starting point is to engage in the process of forming core values. When we have a clear understanding of our core values, we have the option of value-based living as an alternative to living through the patterns put in place by trauma or conditioning. This takes practice. Remember that the emotional muscle memory of trauma will veer a person back to the destructive patterns over and over while a new muscle is being strengthened. This is not a failure – it is the process! Without practice, things like core values mean nothing more than words on a page. Sometimes it means making very hard choices. For example, if you have the core value of health, and you see that you are choosing an unhealthy situation or behavior over and over – you might know you must stop doing that unhealthy thing in order to live your core values. You might need to practice making steps toward being able to walk away from something unhealthy while you build the interest and commitment to living something different and healthy. This is the gradual transfer of identity out of the trauma story and into the true story.

Commander Sisko left the wormhole changed because he was reminded of who he actually is – his essential self. He could see the trauma story and how it wanted to decide for him. But he knew who he was other than that story. He committed to staying on Deep Space Nine – but that is not the end of the story. It is the beginning! Then came the daily work on the station that would continuously challenge him to strengthen the new way of being while learning how to not fall back to emotional muscle memory. We not only need a ship – an understanding of who we truly are – but also the ability to fly it.

The Ability to Fly

Part of recovering from trauma is building a secure attachment to self. We can build a secure attachment to self by giving ourselves consistent care over time, by responding to our own needs over and over. This process mirrors the process of forming attachment to a baby or young child. Through a consistent, caring response to needs, a child learns that they matter and that the world is a safe place. The more consistent we can be with practices that connect us to our core values, the more we will begin to restore self-trust, self-worth, and self-confidence. Another piece of our ability and to have support systems in place for those moments when our consistency is still strengthening or wavers.

One helpful way to learn how to fly the ship is having an available professional like a therapist that is a good fit for you. Some of the healing and recovery process occurs cognitively through creative and engaging therapy that slows down and observes thought and engagement patterns in the moment to help reveal the distinction between truth and conditioning – and begin to tell the difference between the two. It also includes growing the resilience and endurance to allow emotions to be felt through the emotional arc without taking tangents into addictive, symptomatic, or acting out behaviors. Sensory interventions are usually a wonderful tool to begin incorporating as well to awaken one’s connection to the sensory apparatus and become cohesive again with the embodied experience. Self-compassion practices like inner child/baby/teen work, mindfulness, and secure attachment to self are also extremely important. These practices help us become our own inner loving parent to value our true self in the way we always needed. They are the gateway to actually cultivating self-love. An important addition to these intervention strategies is some kind of brain-based intervention. This could include polyvagal techniques, ART (accelerated resolution therapy), or EMDR (eye movement desensitization reprocessing).

In addition to therapeutic work, self-help efforts (reading, workbooks, etc.), a healthy and solid friend or two (or family member) who understand what you are going through, and/or a support/recovery group like in CODA (Codependents Anonymous) or ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families) can be extremely valuable. Humans are social beings. Community support from people who understand and can offer support is priceless. It helps to see that others have walked the path of healing and then, eventually, we can be supportive to people starting their journey as well.

Fuel

Even if we have a ship and we know how to fly it – we cannot lift off and defy the gravity of the trauma story without fuel. What sources can we turn to for such fuel? This question has a wide variety of answers that are difficult to find outside of ourselves. As children, our parents were our source of fuel. Now, as adults, we can pay attention to what fuels us. Is it time in nature, quiet reflection, meditation? Is it being creative – writing, making art, music, dancing under a full moon? Is it exploring spirituality or philosophy? Is it mindfulness? Conscious connection to others?

Another source of fuel is connection to archetypes – those primordial energies that exist in potential and communicate with us through symbols. For example, a rich fairy tale like Vasilisa the Brave and Baba Yaga can serve as a symbolic guide through the journey into the darkness to find the light of consciousness. Such a story can be engaged creatively over time to help fuel the work of living a true story. Music can also connect us to the archetypes and fuel us with an expansive perspective beyond the trauma story. Connecting in a recovery group can bring synergy that goes beyond the fuel one can generate alone.

Fuel comes from what is fresh and new compared to the energy of the past. Time and energy spent with anything beyond our comprehension helps us reach beyond what we have known and toward that which has the fuel needed to help us defy the gravity of a trauma story. For Commander Sisko, it was time with the prophets in the wormhole. Where will you find your fuel?

Conclusion

The process of healing from trauma is best approached integratively, pulling from a variety of sources of support and a combination of interventions because the whole self-system is affected. Healing is possible. It starts with seeing how we exist in the trauma story, how it was written (and by whom), and the discovery that there is a true story waiting to be lived. Just as Commander Sisko committed to Deep Space Nine and began living a new story that helped him find new security and community, we too can begin living a new story. By building the ship, learning how to fly it, and finding a source of fuel, we can leave the gravity of the trauma story and find a new orbit around value-based living.

I AM NO LONGER ORIENTING AROUND PAIN.

I AM ORGANIZING AROUND PLEASURE.

~Toni Jones:

References:

Fisher, J. (2019) Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma

Johnson, K. A. (2021). Call of the Wild: How we heal trauma, awaken our own power, and use it for good.