After serving for decades as a trauma therapist, I confess that many platitudes about tragedy irk me. I don’t believe the declaration that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Though this can be true, I’ve loved and provided care to people who were hollowed out by devastating hardships. I don’t believe God only gives us what we can handle, because my faith won’t include abusive people as divine agents offering growth opportunities. Presenting trauma as some kind of strength test that people can pass or fail isn’t helpful, but neither is the narrative that trauma is always and only damaging.
When psychologist researchers Tedeschi and Calhoun (2004) originally presented their concept of Post-Traumatic Growth, their insights challenged prevailing views that trauma shatters people. They found that though people are deeply shaken by traumatic experiences, most survivors bounce back. In fact, they usually bounce forward: discovering personal strengths, life purpose, compassion, gratitude, creativity and spirituality. Similarly, Rebecca Solnit’s 2009 book, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster, makes the case that rather than leading to mass panic and societal collapse, natural disasters and terrorist attacks awaken in survivors humanity’s best instincts of cooperation, creativity and communal care. It’s not that these outcomes happen necessarily, but they are likely and that’s important to allow in our imaginations.
By welcoming a nuanced understanding of trauma’s impact, we can bring compassion to ourselves and each other when we’re struggling, without adding pressure to become our best selves. You’re not doing anything wrong to feel bereft, anxious and overwhelmed when trauma has turned your world upside-down. Your only job now is to put one foot in front of the other. Just like with other forms of grief, it’s hard to imagine life going on at all, and usually impossible to fathom life somehow being better than before. You don’t need to strive for it—the possibility for Post-Traumatic Growth will be there without your effort. In time, your curiosity will likely awaken, and you might notice what else has happened along the way.
I recently learned that on their journey to becoming butterflies, caterpillars fully dissolve while in the chrysalis. Hmm. . . . Ok fine! I see now how fitting this most clichéd metaphor about transformational growth is. I’d always assumed caterpillars just hung out in there while sprouting wings, but no, they decompose into a soupy substance. I love that these gooey cells containing the butterfly blueprint are called Imaginal Cells. When reeling from trauma’s blow, we fall apart, we come undone. And all the while, the capacity for growth, healing and connection are in us as well. Like imaginal cells seeking expression, our resilience usually unfurls with time and care.
Photo Credit: Suzanne Williams
