I realized, late, that May is Trauma Awareness Month. I never focused on this because I wasn't really sure how to talk about it until this past year. National Trauma Survivors Day is celebrated on the third Wednesday of May. This year has been different due to the Pandemic and the whole world changing, making it very difficult for the entire trauma community.
Not many knew that for the past year I had been attending our local Trauma Survivors Network Meetings. It has helped me share my feelings and thoughts that no one else was able to fully understand. Sure, I can talk to my family, but I would often get frustrated when they didn't know how to support me. It wasn't fair to them and it wasn't fair to me. I am so thankful to the people in the TSN community for being there when I felt lost and confused.
The sad thing is that during these past two months of social distancing and the pandemic, we have not been able to look to our "people" for that comfort. Some days have felt manageable and others impossible. Right when we thought that we may have come to a point where we can handle this, it comes to a halt in which no one could have possibly predicted, leaving us feeling sad and lonely.
As Trauma survivors, we were completely blindsided by the unthinkable. We have worked hard to try and recover and gain what control we had left of our lives. What I want to focus on for the last few days of the Month is this...... We have made it this far. You have made it. Even though we are not able to see each other in person during these times, we are still together in spirit.
We are our own best teachers and have shared our stories in order to start our self healing journey. Let us remember to be kind to ourselves during this time and always. We are trauma survivors and have so much left to live for.
For more information please visit the American Trauma Society. Click here to find your local Trauma Survivors Network community.
Thank you sir!
Dear Annette:
I am praying with Jesus for you and all trauma survivors for peace and healing as well as for wisdom about how to extract yourselves psychologically and spiritually from your respective battlefields from which you were long ago physically evacuated but still, for far too many, continue to be psychologically and spiritually deeply wounded, and even for some, still brutally pinned down as if in the “valley of the shadow of death” (e.g., Psalm 23:4; etc.). Amen!!!
In Biblical Love for You and All Trauma Survivors Everywhere,
Thomas Steven Roth, MBA, MD
Christian Minister for Biblical Medical Ethics, and therefore,
Religious and Scientific Refugee from the Clinical Practice of Psychiatric Standards of Care
P.O. Box 24211
Louisville, KY…