JoAnna Plath

A Letter to My Trauma
By: JoAnna Plath

Dear Trauma,
I want to resent you. I want to drown you in the tears from the never-ending tragic memories. I know what you do, I know how you like it. For you, my mind has spent almost four decades in a continual heartbreaking design. You wait. You lurk. You prey on every vulnerability created in my forty year lifespan. I may have an occasional good day. However, I know you are there waiting for an opportunity. Always ready to take my feet out from under me. I fall every time. Bust my head open on some metaphorical concrete slab. Bleed out for all to see.

It’s there you begin to flood.
I remember it all.
I see you, trauma. I hear you. I smell you.
You touch me in molesting, convoluting caresses. Penetrating too deep.

I remember the childhood. The beautiful strawberry blonde, wide-eyed little girl. I remember her curled up in the bathroom, returning to the womb fetal position. I thought if I prayed hard enough, if I cried harder… God would hear me. My gracious omnipotent creator would save me. No more beatings. No more paddles, belts, or knuckle slaps across my face. No more feeling unworthy and unloved. In the bathroom floor, we began creating safe places because you have been with me since birth. I began nurturing you, trauma. It’s one of my earliest memories. The pleas to “make it stop” wouldn’t be answered for another eleven years. Only to take a brief stunting break before you began to feed again.

As I grew older, I think perhaps you were always meant to grow with me.
I remember being held down when the child grew into a woman. Not strong enough yet. Vulnerable to vulture self-esteem crushing men who are not capable of love. They reminded me, perhaps both of us together, that we didn’t deserve love. No one would want us. How we are too crazy to be loved. They grabbed our ponytails, and dumped water on our face until we couldn’t breathe. They tied us to a wooden bed, arms and legs spread. They bound us together in blood and you grew larger, my dearest trauma. The ropes dug deep into my wrists this evening. They wrote disgusting words on my body. They branded us in designer lipstick graffiti with words like “fat pig” and “daddy’s fat slut.” They beat us for sexual gratification until finally it ends, and they peak. Moaning in delight. All you and I could do is look to the side. Look away.

You were there with me. Weren’t you, trauma?
You remember the emptiness and the shame as we scrubbed the words away.
You remember how the dark mauve shade stained the skin?
Tears rolled down my face in the bathroom as my skin became red and raw from their seeds and unpleasant deeds.

We developed companions along the way. Our rocking and swaying side to side is still present. I think this is our favorite self-soothing coping mechanism. You like the triggers—the haunting lightning rods to a painful past, like a cinnamon smell or the cracking sound of a belt. The way our stomach becomes nauseated when we see pictures and news articles about the people from which my trauma is created. They are the seed bearers and planters. They helped create you, trauma.

They made sure when you rise to the surface, we begin gasping deep hard, fast breaths. When we visit the ladies you hate the most, the therapists, they label those breathes and racing heart beats as “panic attacks.” They confront you, trauma, like a bull running to the matador in some Spanish arena, and they stab you. They make you rise even when you don’t want to. They even found a way to forget you in the nightmares. They label you with a diagnosis, they call you by the nickname of “PTSD.” I don’t know how I feel about this label. To me, your birth name is “trauma.” Forever and always shall this be what I will call you. I don’t really know any other way to explain you.

You are not comfortable. I have had to learn to create tricks like the prankster, Loki. To escape you and not fall down deep-crevassed rabbit holes, where you swallow me entirely. I know what happens if I don’t take over and exert some control. You convince me, this is death. Make my body believe something is physically wrong. You take my mind to all the past hurt, fill me with regret. Replay. Rewind. Replay again. Over and over and over. Until I’m lying on the floor, once again begging my creator to make it stop. Eventually, I don’t think this is the source I should be asking for help.

Ultimately, I have to learn how to exorcise you out of my mind.
Perhaps, I must become the creator and save myself from you, trauma.
Or are we capable of living in harmony, you and me together?

In this education, I want you to know some things. I don’t hate you. I don’t wish for different or better. I accept you. You made me stronger than anyone I know. I hold you in the same regard as my joy and happiness. You aren’t inherently evil, and I don’t blame you. I’m not ashamed of you. I am vulnerable and compassionate. These are the lessons I choose to take into account. You gave me my greatest gift—expressing myself in written form. Maybe from this is how we touch others and transmute dark moments into love. I want you to know, I am grateful. It’s not your fault. I know you get tired of hearing those words. As with any child, my dear scarring trauma, you didn’t ask to be born. Here we are, surviving in tandem. Understanding. Empathetic. Unapologetically authentic.

Thank you for helping me survive.
Thank you for showing me how strong we are together.
Thank you for being a part of my journey.

Yours Truly,
A Thriving Survivor