How can you find peace in this moment if you’ve experienced deep pain in the past? How can you release past hurt and allow trauma to heal? And how can you do this in a way that honours your painful emotions?
In this blog post, I share some of my thoughts and experiences on healing from trauma. My wish is that this post can offer you new perspective and support if you’ve experienced traumatic events in the past.
(Note: What I share in this post is based on my personal experience and not any kind of medical or professional advice. If you need help with trauma healing, please contact a certified health care professional.)
Trauma arising
I got the inspiration to write this post after visiting my local health centre a couple of weeks ago. I had been in a lot of pain and finally left for the first aid unit to see a doctor one night. The doctor examined me and believed it was an abscess that was causing my pain. He explained to me that he was going drain the abscess with a needle and a nurse helping him.
Despite my pain and tiredness, I was feeling calm throughout the whole examination. My mental and emotional state changed quickly, however, when I asked the doctor about pain medication. I asked whether I could receive pain medication for the procedure, in addition to the local anaesthetic. The doctor didn’t think it was necessary and assured me I would be fine without it.
As soon as he said this, tears started running down my face, I had trouble breathing and I felt like I was going into a panic. Unconsciously, I believed that I couldn’t trust the doctor and that he wouldn’t care about my pain. I explained to the nurse and the doctor that I was experiencing symptoms of trauma and felt panicky about having a procedure without proper pain relief.
Both the nurse and the doctor treated me very kindly. They got some pain medication ready in case I would need it and explained everything they were doing during the procedure. After all, I was able to calm down and didn’t need any additional pain medication. I returned home feeling much better and grateful for the kindness I’d received.
Pain in the past
The panic I was feeling that night was a result of traumatic events that I experienced about three years ago. I had an operation to create a J-pouch and a temporary loop ileostomy in February 2017. It took me months to recover from the operation and I spent a lot of time in hospital. I had complications and all in all, it was a very hard and painful time for me.
The most traumatic event happened when I had a procedure to insert a central venous catheter in a vein on my neck. To sum it up, I didn’t receive any sedatives or pain medication (expect for local anaesthetic) before or during the procedure even though I was in a lot of pain. I was crying, shouting, had trouble breathing and was going into a panic. In addition, both of my lungs collapsed during the procedure.
After that event, I started experiencing clear symptoms of trauma. It started showing up in situations where I was going to have a procedure that I feared would be especially painful. If I was afraid of not receiving proper pain relief, I would start crying uncontrollably, have difficulty breathing and feel like I was going into a panic. This is what happened at my visit to the health centre two weeks ago.
Symptoms of trauma
Even though I was having the most obvious signs of trauma at certain procedures and examinations, the past pain was affecting me in other ways too.
I had my last operation – which was to reverse the ileostomy – at the end of 2017. After that, I had no more operations planned and was getting some distance to the hospital. While I didn’t need to focus on surviving operations and long stays in hospital anymore, I was experiencing more symptoms of past traumatic events in my everyday life.
Some examples of these symptoms were bad dreams related to hospital and surgeries. I also felt waves of sadness and anxiety flooding over me every now and then. Sometimes, I had flashbacks to the hospital; a simple thing like seeing a flashing TV screen could trigger those flashbacks. And one time, I remember going to the hospital for an appointment, and just the sight of the building made me feel so anxious I wanted to turn around and go home.
At first, I didn’t really know how to deal with the past and my painful emotions. I was either invalidating my feelings and telling myself to “shrug it off”. Or alternatively, I was reliving the past pain and felt like a victim. What I’ve now learned, is that great relief comes, when I can both honour the past pain and release it.
How to honour and release past pain
Nowadays, when the past pain takes over me, my mantra goes something like this:
“Dear Iiris. Yes, it was hard, and I love you. I honour the anger / sadness / anxiety etc you’re feeling right now. I honour and recognise the pain you felt in the past. But I want you to know that it is not your current reality. Right now, you’re living a beautiful summer day at home. Right now, there is so much to feel joy for, and you can choose to feel good.”
To me, this is a way to love and respect myself. I allow myself to feel all my feelings and be imperfect. But I also guide myself back into my power, saying goodbye to feeling like a victim. I know I can choose to feel good in this moment and choose the reality I want to create.
Forgive yourself first
All my past experiences have taught me a lot about forgiveness. I’ve talked to the doctor who inserted the catheter in my neck, as well as made a notice of injury to the Finnish Patient Insurance Centre. When I’ve been processing the past, I’ve noticed that before I’ve been able to forgive anyone else, I’ve needed to forgive myself first.
Forgiving myself means that I allow myself to be imperfect. I love all of me and see with compassion the part of me who sometimes gives away her power and is caught up in fear. When I feel this love and compassion for myself, I can extend it to other people. I can allow other people to be imperfect too and forgive the times when they act from the place of fear instead of love.
Forgiveness is also releasing. It means that I choose to free myself from holding onto fight, drama and carrying a burden. I choose to not hold a grudge and this way release other people too. And perhaps most importantly, I allow myself to feel lightness, joy and peace in the present moment.
Choose to love yourself!
I hope this blog post served you well and gave you a feeling of comfort. If you enjoyed reading this post, you might want to check out my YouTube video “How I Needed the Thought of Death to Let Go of Stress”. In the video, I talk a little bit about my past experiences in hospital and choosing self-love.
I also want to add that I was seeing a psychologist back in 2017, when the traumatic events described in this post happened. Based on my own experience, talking to a good mental health professional can be helpful if you’re going through a rough time.
I’m wishing you a lot of joy and lightness in your days!
With all my Love & Healing Blessings,
Iiris Linnea
