It Hurts: The Compound Fracture of Trauma

Janet: In our blog www.oursilentvoice.com/our-voice/triggered-, we wrote about triggers. That snap takes you back to the panic, immobilization, fear, or flight response to a threat to our well-being. The fact that we see and hear Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, on Instagram-Live say, “I’m a survivor of sexual assault, and I haven’t told many people that in my life.” 

Not many people tell their trauma story in their life. First and foremost, being believed and being heard with compassion and understanding isn’t available to all of us. In fact, I would venture, nearly never. We hear the woman in the military who must stand at attention in the same squad as her rapist; the boy who carries his assault as a badge of failure in every aspect of his life; and the yoga student stalked by her instructor until she gives in and hates what she sees as her personal failure.

Marie: Being believed and being heard isn’t available to some of us, yes. In honesty, some of us are just not prepared to be that vulnerable. It’s an extremely difficult thing to talk about and put out there. Thanks to so many celebrities who did exactly that: spoke out and told their personal experiences to the world. Different stories, and different kinds of trauma, yet the same unifying awful theme. As a result, now, when a voice speaks out, it is listened to differently.

Trauma can fracture every defense we have, every safety net, every pretense we’ve constructed to appear normal.

Janet: Rep.. Ocasio-Cortez has to confront the misogyny of men in the highest levels of government and power. So, to say to those powerful men who scream at her, “I’m a survivor,” is brave.  Really brave.

Beyond that is the point she made. Trauma can fracture every defense we have, every safety net, every pretense we’ve constructed to appear normal.  Maybe the January 6th attack on our capital was a terrifying thing, but if you hide under a desk, or in a closet, or behind the drapes, that other trauma arrives unbidden and destroys our safety net. It compounds, it hurts worse than the first time, it’s harder to heal.

When I was surprised by flashlights in my face, in the middle of the night when police came into my house, the wrong house, the terror I found myself screaming, incapable of controlling the response to a threat that had nothing to do with my rape.

 The hurt, like the first time, was out of my control. I disinfected the wound with denial and bound it with silence. Each time the band of protection was shattered, it hurt, my anguish hidden by running away, escaping, or hiding. 

By writing, my compound fracture began to heal. There’s a scar, but it’s stronger than when it was an open wound. 

Marie: Healing never seems to be a straight easy road. For someone to come out and write about what happened to them, face the triggers, then face the reactions of friends and family, requires a lot of bravery. I believe no one does it alone. We’re not supposed to battle this alone. By that I mean, best to do this with support and connection around you. Cultivate positive relationships; build a safety net. I think I was in such denial and had played it down in my mind for so long, I believed I didn’t really belong among the survivors of assault. I isolated myself and held myself apart without knowing why. Until I started writing the stories, I had brushed them away as if they were inconsequential. Yet, they shaped me. Those experiences moved me around like a puppet when I was in my home, alone, with a plumber or an electrician. Those experiences colored my nightmares. When I started writing them, the words fixed to a page, they couldn’t move around on their own anymore. They don’t pop up where they want to anymore. I’m taking back my power.

Our Silent Voice was designed to give voice to us who’ve been silenced by assault. We are resilient in our lives; we accomplish and move forward. We know, writing about the compound fracture of trauma is a positive act, one that can lead to a fierce, healing strength. 

Writing and learning how to shape the story into different forms provides structure to hold the pain separate, outside ourselves.