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Writer's pictureNathan Coley

Welcome to the Trauma Market!

Here we are again, right outside the storefronts that outline the perimeter of the village commons. Things are just as you might imagine in this quaint American village. It is fall, and the grass is matted down and littered with autumn leaves. A white Gazebo populates the center of the commons. In the warm months music plays from bands who wear white and red striped suits. Now it is empty. Soon it will be covered in decorative candy canes and string lights, but now everything is barren, and vacant, and quiet.


And cold.


Let’s go shopping while the sun is still up and the weather is still tolerable (although I really don’t mind the cold, so if the temperature dips I promise I will be right by your side).


These are not the storefronts that you are used to—put away thoughts of spiffy clothes, designer bags, the latest books, and a cup of coffee. You can have all of that stuff later.


Most of it is noise anyway, and after awhile, everything you yearn and slave for starts to look like the same curse, always with an invoice outstanding.


The only expense here, on this shopping trip, is what is left of my positively tattered reputation. Count yourself lucky that my name won’t have to appear on your resume.


Yikes! Ok. Where was I.


Where. Was. I.


The lack of a question mark, I confess, is an artful mistake to indicate that I know exactly where I am, and I’m just wasting time for the sake of a little rhetorical grease.


You don’t want these readings to feel robotic, do you? I’m a blogger second and a human first.


The shopping awaits us. In window after window, there are giant, seductive, glistening displays of commodities that are filled with passion. The products you are about to see are made up of no less than the composite matter of a human soul. They can get hot, so be careful and put on some gloves.


We have arrived at the world famous Trauma Response Market.


In the first window, angling from two long pieces of copper wiring, are sculptures of two eyeballs, pointed down and to the left. We have started our shopping trip at the ever popular and often unnoticed: Aversion of the Eyes Trauma Response. This is most useful for when you are engaged in face to face conversation. When you are certain that the person across from you can look at your face and see all the way to your worst, you exit the situation straight outta the eyeballs.


When you are uncomfortable and when you are sure the other person hates you, there is no need for theatrics. Take your eyes, point them downward, and step over to the next window for the Freeze Trauma Response.


And yes, don’t worry. Trauma responses can work in tandem and then some. They are the world’s most perfect set of maladaptive Lincoln Logs.


You are at the next storefront, and it’s time to freeze. If trauma responses aren’t exactly a new part of your diet, you may be familiar with the sibling responses to freeze, Fight or Flight. Since you’re reading through my experiences for this exercise, I’m inviting you to freeze with me.


Brrrrrrrrrrrr.


What is freezing like? After having mastered this trick over the past few years, I would describe the freeze response as “stationary flight.” When you enter the freeze response, you won’t be have any resources available for aggression. No fighting.


You are freezing, so no fighting!


When you freeze as your preferred TS, or trauma response, lock up all physical activity instantly. Keep the aversion of the eyes response with you, and pick a diagonal corner. I find that down and to the left is a pretty good posture for my gaze.


At this point, you’ll notice a feeling of dread settle somewhere; to reinforce the freeze response, focus on the dread itself and not what is causing the dread. Take your mind and hide hide hide, in place, with the hopeless hope that simply crawling into a shell like a turtle will make the problems go away.


Cowabunga, baby.


Now that you are in the freeze response, shift over, in the same window, just a little, to put on the Magical Hat of Dissociation.


And by this point in the trauma response, you are PRIMED for dissociation. So, keep the stance, just like someone trying to hit a grand slam at the end of a pennant race. Stay frozen, eyes down and to the left. Allow the dread to just settle. After it sits for a few seconds, continued trauma will make the dread positively sizzle.


And who doesn’t like a good sear? Honestly.


Next, take your mind, your thoughts, your sense of self and being and location, and shift them. Toss them up and away, and picture this: your mind is over there, way over there, and you are still here, feeling as you are trapped half inside your body, and half outside your body. As reality closes in, the mind pushes out and away, trying to settle on some vacant space that is free of pain and distressing events.


You are in your body, and you are not in your body. You are dissociating.


As a bonus, you tack on the Stimulation Trauma Response, taking uncontrollable emotions and funneling them through a pattern of repetitive behaviors, such as pacing or rocking back and forth.


If you do this part as well as me, you can put up 25,000 steps, and over 8 and a half miles, in the space of your own home on the average day. In this sense, TS doubles as a kind of weight loss program.


And this, good people of the audience, leads me to the next addition to the buffet: Disordered Eating Trauma Responses.


You’re following along with me, so it’s time to get depressed, eat less, and watch those pounds melt away with the remnants of your sanity. Prepare to be amazed as your favorite meals increasingly taste like nothing at all. Stun yourself as you order half the portion you used to eat, only to eat half of that. Marvel at how much you can do on so few calories. To ensure that your nutrition isn’t only lacking, but actively harmful, stuff yourself with ice cream, cookies, and all the things that you severely limit in the diets of your children.


You have been shopping for a while.


You are out of cash.


Your credit cards are maxed OUT.


And if none of what you have purchased works? There are always payment plans to be had around that last item, the one in the rear of the store, covered in a red curtain, elevated on a platform:


The Trauma Response of Rage.


Just be careful, as select financing plans on rage have no maturation date, but continue forever.




Yours Mentally,



Nathan


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