Trauma Causes You To Lock Away A Younger Hurt Self, But It Will Not Disappear

       I was thinking about how my voice sounds low and childish at times, and was wondering if that was because of a symptom of my body feeling traumatized and stuck in young age. I found a video on YouTube, an inspiring TedTalks, called Trauma is irreversible. How it shapes us is our choice -Sasha Joseph Neulinger. It made me cry. He was saying how he was sexually abused at age 4 for the first time, by an uncle, and he remembered feeling awful because he had no idea what was happening but it hurt him a lot and he thought, "If I can get this hurt from someone who loves me then I must be awful." He felt horrible about himself, and later he was sexually abused by different cousins and as it was happening the guy was yelling at him, "If you tell anyone I'll kill you." He wasn't even thinking of telling anyone at that point, because it hurt him so much and he internalized it to be his fault. Soo sad my heart went out to him. He tried to forget it and start a new life for himself, and moved far away and started college to work in film. Although he was becoming successful and things were going his way, he still had this ugly feeling about himself at 4 years old locked away, and did not want to face it out of fear and shame. It ate away at him, until he couldn't take it and went for therapy. The first time he told his friend about it, and he says that it is not so uncommon as it happens to every fifth guy studies show shockingly, he had the best feeling. He said traumas that children and babies go through shape who they become, and we need to look at that more because they cause our personalities to fracture and we can disown parts of ourselves that were hurt, and we need every part of ourselves to live healthily. Now, he says, a documentary was made about him and he received millions of messages from people who had gone through the same thing and how much it helped them.

          What struck me was how he said that it still affects him and he still has to listen to that 4 year old voice inside that tells him he is horrible every once in a while when things come up. He says we all need to do this with our traumas, and work with our feelings and face them. Not doing so would be locking away a vital part of yourself and prevent you from living fully. I love this because it applies to how I did the same, as a child I felt awful and hid myself because of shame. It must have started from when I was adopted as a baby, because I get into fits that feel nonverbal sometimes, and I can't even describe why I feel so rejected and it hurts so bad. I could just start crying if someone seems to hang up on me. i appreciate how he said that we have to look at our pain we don't want to face, and tell ourselves that we love ourselves and see what happened. It is encouraging.