Your Trauma Is Not An Excuse

Trauma is one of the new favorite psychological buzz word, and so is the concept of "unpacking" said trauma. While acknowledgement of one's trauma is healthy and neccesary, it's not in and of itself a means to a healthy end. Many are using their acknowledged trauma as a means to justify harm, instead of moving to the final stage which is building a new reality. This blog is about highlighting the dangers of using your trauma to justify harm, and what to do instead.

When it comes to the conversation around trauma we must be careful how we use it when it comes to the surface. What I’ve seen is a growing trend of people using their trauma like an entitlement card to make wreckless decisions.

When trauma is unpacked it is important that we use it to EXPLAIN behaviors and patterns so that we can understand an individual with greater knowledge, not EXCUSE behaviors and patterns so that they can continue without consequence.

Having experienced trauma doesn’t automatically give you pardon from consequences. Too often we say that someone has done something wrong and then go: Yeah I know he did that BUT you don’t know what he’s been through.

We do that because we think we’re being compassionate, when in actuality we’re being crippling. We are in our false compassion, enabling and reinforcing the broken parts of an individual that cause hurt and pain to other people.

Now there are some that do the exact opposite. They go straight to accountability and believe that your trauma has nothing to do with nothing. You did it, you pay.

I’m submitting that true love is not either judge mental accountability or wreckless compassion. It’s not either or. It’s not yes but. It’s yes...AND.

Yes that happened to you.

Yes that sucks that you had to experience and endure that.

Yes it sucks that you have to work through those barriers.

Yes I understand how it’s hard to ___ when you’ve been through ____

AND

Yes there are tools available to be whole

Yes you are still responsible for how your actions impact the people around you

Yes you still have to step and do the work even though it’s hard.

Yes you will be held accountable like the rest of the world which could involve you loa my certain things if you demonstrate that you are unable to manage them appropriately. This includes: relationships, Jobs, positions of power, platforms, and resources.

It’s BOTH the empathy AND the accountability.

Look at how God deals in this exact same way with David. David’s sin with Bathsheba revealed some HUGE character flaws in David. One could argue that potentially at the heart of David’s sin, murder, lying, adultery, abuse, and frank disregard for life was his own childhood trauma of abandonment, lack of care or investment from his father, and an estranged relationship with his mother. When David repented for his wrongs, God shows care for the brokenness in David that underscored his childhood, but at the same time God helped him to understand that he was still a grown man, servant of God, and a KING who was responsible for his actions; trauma or not. God showed great compassion towards David, yet and still the child he had conceived was not allowed to live, David would personally experience the same violence that he executed on another man, and God would allow David to PUBLICLY lose things and people that he valued since David caused Bathsheba to lose in private. God is not only the best example of mercy, He IS mercy. He IS compassion. So if the mercy and compassion of God towards trauma is not without consequence, then why should our attempt at mercy be?

True love validates the reality and severity of all trauma, yet it also calls for someone to do the necessary work to be free from said trauma so that they live up to their highest calling and purpose: the free self.

In fact, I would even say that true compassion is accountability. I care about you so much that I don’t want you to continue to be out here hurting people and situations. I care about you so deeply that I won’t coddle your pain because coddled pain is never healed. Confronted pain gets healed. I care about you so much that I want to speak truth to you and make you aware of the consequences of your actions.

You know you’re free and whole when you stop blaming people for stuff. When you love yourself, you’re able to say these key words: "I WAS WRONG", and it not mess with your entire self image. You’re able to hear truth and self correct and realize that sometimes it’s not the world being problematic or insensitive. Sometimes you just have to grow, and growth is not negative. Growth is he promise of God. The only scriptural guaranteed system that would endure was “seed time and harvest”. If I believe that, then I don’t have to use my trauma to excuse my behavior. I bring it up to understand why I’m doing a certain thing, I call out the impact of that particular behavior and then I SOW A DIFFERENT SEED so that I can reap a different emotional psychological and spiritual harvest in my relationships with others.

I have had to live with the impact of my decisions. I've had to own my choices that costed me friendships, opportunities, and more. The moments of "accountability" where I pined for empathy for how "hard my life is/was" or "how bad I felt" I later learned wasn't accountability, it was actually manipulation. And that's the hard truth that we have to stare in the face. Using trauma to explain away bad choices instead of repenting for said choices isn't accountability, it's manipulation. The real growth is being able to own the harm we've caused to others, and even to ourselves. It sounds heavy, but when done genuinely there's so much hope in that. There's so much freedom in that.

And that's why one thing about me now, (and the people closest to me know this), I’m not afraid to say “aye I was wrong”. I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a great communicator but an awful friend. I speak well but I don’t text/call back. Sometimes I over promise and under deliver. My hairline is still receding (lol). And here’s the thing: with all of that, I STILL have value, and from that place I’m able to approach the things that aren’t the best in me with great openness and focus so that they will gradually CHANGE (especially the hairline part).

Are you allowing your patterns to go unaddressed while people get hurt by them, just because you "had a hard life". OR, are you turning a blind eye to the severity of how someone else is living because you know that “they’ve been hurt?” and you want to show them grace? My prayer for you is that you will love yourself enough to have compassion towards the trauma you’ve experienced, but also expect that you're not supposed to stay there forever.

My prayer is also that you might mature in the way you love those who God has placed in your life, so that you can have compassion for what has happened to them in a deep genuine way, and yet when the time calls for it, speak the truth to them so that toxic patterns that are a result of that trauma do not continue to negatively impact the world.

That, my friends, is what we call GRACE AND TRUTH.

Here’s to freedom. God bless.

-Princeton