“Trauma does not excuse you from a prison cell any more than it does unacceptable behaviors”
A scorpion waits along a river bank wanting so desperately to cross the river but he cannot swim. As a frog swims by, the scorpion calls out to him to ask if he could be so kind as to carry him across on his back.
The frog hesitates and questions the scorpion on how he might sting him if he were to do so.
The scorpion promises not to and points out the fact that if he were to do so that they would both drown, so of course, he could not do such a thing. He only wished to cross the river to join his other friends.
The frog ponders this logic for a moment and agrees to transport the frog across the river.
Halfway across the river, the frog begins to state that they are almost there when he feels the sting of the scorpion. The frog asks him why he would doom them both when he promised not to.
“I am sorry” the scorpion replies, ” I could not resist, I am a scorpion after all. It’s in my nature.”
We Are Sharks After All
Surfing and sharks are an accepted coexistence. I started surfing at 12 years old and learned to swim at 11. Fear was an ever-present guest in my life in those days, so submerging a spindly non-appetizing body into the salty waters of a shark’s living room seemed a good opportunity for exposure therapy.
On one occasion, a friend from elementary school and a year older than me invited me to try and go surfing in a storm – a dare all kids should indulge in.
The point was to see how far we could get paddling out, nothing more.
Actually, unbeknownst to me at the time, there was more to the act of stupidly tempting Poseidon to take me. There is plenty of research along the west coast that during rain storms, sharks tend to congregate closer to shore. Rain runoff creates a buffet of dead organisms and freshwater fish being pushed out to sea. The waters also grow grey and murkier from the churn of the waves closer to shore making visibility even poorer for the sharks to strike whatever may be in biting distance.
My friend knew this. Why and how he knew this, one could only guess. The fact was we were about to tempt death – just because.
What happened moments later did not involve sharks, although I recall seeing one or two. The waves we attempted to avoid were having their way with us and I retreated quickly back to shore. My friend was not so sensible.
Upon going for help and dragging him back to shore, he had been tossed about and dragged under long enough to do great harm. This young boy would spend the next few years learning to walk again and never quite did so as he once was accustomed to. There is a story here that drags on and off for years but my point in retelling this involves one day in particular.
Over 20 years later, I crossed paths with this friend from so long ago. We had become very different people. In the brief moments we spoke, I learned the physical pain from the surfing accident and abusive parents had taken their toll on him.
He had spent years in and out of group homes and spent the majority of his adult life in and out of prison. Addiction and violent crimes had become his identity and here he was retelling the tale that he blamed on that day at the beach years ago.
However, through the horror stories he shared and the obvious shame of the violent and hollow adult he had become, he shared one phrase that stuck with me.
He said,
“The only antidote to mental pain is physical pain. Trauma doesn’t discriminate and doesn’t care. In the end, trauma does not excuse you from a prison cell any more than it does unacceptable behaviors.”
In the end, I thought, we become the very thing that harmed us. Far too often the monsters convert us and teach us to hunt like sharks and the excuse is that we are sharks, after all, we have teeth for a reason. For some of us, it’s in our nature.
The Brain Carries History
Here’s another story:
I sat in an office of a Psychiatrist once.
The reason had nothing to do with seeking mental health care.
I was diagnosed with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and a year into treatment through a plethora of medications, the effects were increasing and I was reacting in ways that were associated with PTSD.
The reason for this, I still believe, is not that the medication was interfering with my chemistry alone, it was stimulating a part of my brain that had long been injured by my seizures which would be in the range of up to nine times a day on a bad day.
The psychiatrist explained that my temporal lobe is responsible for auditory information and encoding memory.
I knew this, but my concern was why the increase in repressed memory and night terrors at a horrifying level.
It was explained that the temporal lobe has 5 functions of importance:
• understanding language
• acquiring memory
• facial recognition
• environmental recognition
• processing auditory information
It was explained how these 5 functions are key in receiving, processing, and storing the information associated with them.
Damaging my ability to use any one of them hindered my response to how I process memory past and present, as well as how I communicated within interpersonal relationships.
My brain had stored the trauma from childhood.
Epilepsy had both hidden and released some of that traumatic memory.
My cognitive abilities associated with my temporal lobe were at war with each other and it was getting more confusing and chaotic by the day.
I spent time in a memory prison for decades and now I was being released and the regained memories and emotions involved were the backlash of shame, guilt, and the unlocking of the entire trauma box that had been buried for so long.
Released Into Society
Much like my friend, I was experiencing my version of blame and shame for the past. The exception was that I was becoming aware of the years of manipulation and denial inside my mind and how it had affected anyone who had ever been in my life.
Jump ahead in time a few more years and the negative behaviors had begun to hardwire themselves into me.
I was doing the work and research with the aid of those in the field of psychology but the damage had been done, reversal seemed an impossibility.
Trauma had become an excuse for every poor behavior or “bad luck” moment in my life. My story of being a product of narcissistic and absentee parents was a perfect excuse. I was a child of sexual abuse and only discovering to what depths decades later – another perfect excuse.
I would even go so far as to say that life’s little traumas had created a tiny monster that grew up to become a bigger monster, therefore addiction, lack of behavioral development, and rough circumstances were the ultimate excuse.
I am the trifecta, the hurricane, and the damaged soul that just needed salvation and had not found it yet.
Excuses not only look bad, but they also taste bad as you speak them – every time.
“Accountability by definition does not allow an excuse for you not getting at the origin of that which causes you and those around you harm.”
Generational Trauma
There is one more little fact that added a little extra twist to the trauma stories lined up inside of me to cover the chaos I would create.
I come from a long line of not-so-good human beings.
This took years to discover but once I did, a lot of things made more sense. The shame actually shifted because there was a correlation between the why and to some extent “because.”
So if in theory, I thought to myself, if I take this information to my therapist, my friends, and my family; then would they not see that this was all on account of my history?
I had here another reason or excuse as it truly should be called, as to why the behaviors existed. I would say that here you have before you not only the traumas of this lifetime surfacing and wreaking havoc internally, but you have the generational aspect of it as well.
You have a case here, I would continue to tell myself, of a person who directly comes from a bloodline of narcissism, exploitation, violence, and even cultural and social dismantling going down through the generations.
Does this warrant an excuse?
I thought so.
In truth, it does not.
Trauma in any form, generational or circumstantial does not excuse the propensity and actions of hostile behavior.
I know this to be true on account of the vast amount of research and studies in psychology, social anthropology, and behavioral sciences. You can only lie for so long before a greater truth presents itself.
It always does.
Accountability by definition does not allow an excuse for you not getting at the origin of that which causes you and those around you harm.
The basis of our values and belief systems should require this kind of conviction. Often it does not because “trauma” in any form will not allow it. At least this is what we tell ourselves.
How does one get from a place of defeat and utter fear to a place of facing that which creates the most chaos?
How does one stand up against that when you do not know it even exists at all?
The answer is not always favorable.
I wished for an answer and sought answers for decades and even most of that time for me involves a veil of blinders, shame, and absolute confusion.
Redefining Trauma
Trauma has its own definition. It’s not merely a catch-all term or scapegoat. Trauma is any experience that causes physical, emotional, and overwhelm that hinders your sense of safety or even your reality.
It is something that can render you powerless and feel useless and even to the other side of the spectrum where it can conjure up abilities in rendering others powerless and traumatized.
I believe those of us who have experienced anything along the trauma spectrum understand that it has historically wronged us and changed our system in terms of beliefs and the brain.
Whether through diagnosis or not, someone who has experienced these things may be in the throes of PTSD, carry a prevalence of violence, substance abuse, or a vast range of criteria that carry the trauma mark and the potential to use this as an excuse.
Although this is not the case for everyone, those that do have the inability to regulate emotions, assess appropriate and inappropriate behaviors, and maintain positive healthy interpersonal relationships are encouraged to seek further.
A personal format that has evolved and worked for me was experimentation. A few things I have experimented with have led to lifelong healthy habits.
A few of these to explore are:
Accountability and Post-traumatic Growth
For those that can take ownership, I encourage you to carry those actions of discovery and accountability forward. Find support systems that need you as much as you need them.
Find a place, a person, an outlet that lets you discover what is beneath the surface at your own pace. There may be decades and generations to discover and time is the only thing that offers reasoning and accountability is the only thing you answer to – religiously.
No excuses.
Embrace the pain. It’ll transform you, it’ll shape who you become if you learn to sit with it.
Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is often a key factor in self-development and for good reason.
Uncomfortable comes with the process.
Own that process.
Become skilled and disciplined in every painful memory and lesson.
The past created you and the trauma will release you.
What you become next is whatever you imagine yourself to be but the road will not be easy.
Lastly, I will leave this thought:
In all of my years on this planet, nothing came easy that was good. The things which caused the most turmoil, pain, and exhaustion created the greatest lessons – every single time.
This is where you will learn endurance. From endurance comes perseverance and from perseverance you become unstoppable at what you can rewire and rebuild within the mind.
Pain and trauma have shown me the most beautifully painful experiences that have transformed me into the very thing I could never have imagined. All I had to do is take one more step and be ready to fall because the step after the fall is all that matters.
