Before you read the third entry on my series on mental health, I strongly encourage you to read the previous entry called “For the First Time in Forever” — An Intro to Bipolar”. You will see why I am using clips of the movie Frozen throughout this series, as well as prime you for interpreting the entire film in a new way.
This entry is a story that I have only told therapists and my students. I never even posted it to Facebook because I felt ashamed. In fact, I felt that I didn't need to disclose further traumas because I already gave to them so many of mine. I used these traumas as a writing prompt for the “most interesting thing that has ever happened to me” in class. The kids always laughed with me about these two stories at the end of this diary, and I hope you will too. Laughter is the best medicine when recovering from a trauma. If done right, it heals instead of triggers the old wound.
What is a trigger when it comes to mental health? NAMI has more:
A trigger, sometimes referred to as a stressor, is an action or situation that can lead to an adverse emotional reaction. In the context of mental illness, referring to triggers usually means something that has brought on or worsened symptoms.
In the ongoing dialogue about mental health, we don’t talk enough about triggers. Most often, the discussion focuses on what happens after a person has been triggered, which is when the situation is much harder to address. Understanding, identifying and working to prevent triggers can be more empowering and effective.
Triggers lead to trauma, which is explained best in the short video below. Trauma is especially dangerous to the developing brain, in spite of the resiliency of kids.
In the movie Frozen, the initial trauma is set into place when Elsa accidentally hurts Anna while they are innocently playing together as shown in the clip below. It is triggers such as these that ultimately produce trauma, which can lead to a mental health crisis. Learning how to deal with triggers and avoiding them if possible is a HUGE part of surviving with a mental illness!
The song “Do you Want to Build a Snowman?” shows the consequences of that trauma above. Elsa is frozen in fear (pun intended) because she doesn’t wish to hurt Anna any further. Anna can represent your friends and family trying to draw someone out of a depressive state. It isn’t the easiest thing in the world for adults, let alone little kids! Because Anna is primed to forget what happened by the trolls and Elsa forced to remember in fear, there cannot be a healthy relationship — ever. The trauma prevents the relationship from happening. This causes further trauma with the triggers of their parents suddenly dying and eventually Anna trying to marry Hans and Elsa flat out saying no. Unresolved trauma leads to more trauma, no matter how deeply it is buried!
As for my own major traumas, they blighted an already anti-social person and turned me into a person who had trust issues and never could easily make friends. My first choice was to always withdraw, no matter what the situation. While nature (genetics) predisposes people to mental health issues, there also has to be a nurture (environmental) component as well for the illness to make any sense. Lucky me, I had two emotionally deeply scarring events when I was little.
When I was four years old and about to turn five, I had a very heavy traumatic head injury where my skull split open. All I can remember about what happened is that I was riding the bus home from kindergarten. For some reason, I wanted to change seats while the bus was stopped. The driver hadn’t noticed me stand up and move and the bus started its forward motion. My little 4 year old body could not handle the forces and snapped backwards and hit my head. After that, all I could remember was the blood — lots of it.
The ER wound up needing to give me a severe haircut and put in two or three staples to hold together my head. My appearance was ghastly, especially since I was wearing glasses at the time. I looked like a nearsighted goblin who got whacked with a sword. I was socially awkward, and instead of turning this cool scar into something to talk about, I withdrew from my classmates and everyone else. I always felt judged at my first school because of this.
An exception was my local Methodist church, as none of the kids witnessed or had knowledge of this event. However, another tragic event on my 8th birthday traumatized me for a very long time. It was the most embarrassed I had ever felt, and my so-called friends never let me hear the end of it.
A couple of days before the birthday party, I had caught some really bad stomach bug that made me puke my guts out. Mom was worried and wanted to cancel the party, but it was the first one I had ever invited people over so I begged her not to do so. I couldn’t keep normal medicine down, so my PCP prescribed suppositories. That, as my seven year old self found out, was medicine to be taken anally.
On the day of the party, I was feeling great. Everything went off without a hitch. All of my friends came, and many of them brought a friend along that I hoped would be my friend too! But then, the birthday cake came out. The candles were lit, and happy birthday was about to be sung. Instead of singing, I vomited right on the birthday cake right in front of everyone. I couldn’t stop doing it either!
Oh, and my brother (4 years old) said something at the top of his lungs that I have had difficulty forgiving. He doesn’t remember doing it because he was little, but I sure as hell do. After the vomiting episode, he screams “Mom, he needs his medicine up the butt again!”. Let’s just say the party ended shortly thereafter.
On top of that, I have abandonment issues even though I lived in a stable two parent household. Basically, my mom was a recluse even when I was little and my dad chose work over spending time with me. He made promises that were never kept, which made it difficult to trust other people who made promises to me. While this wasn’t to the level of trauma above, it still left its mark on my psyche. You will find out what these things did to me at a frighteningly young age in a future diary in this series.
I hope this sheds a little bit of light on what traumas can do to set the stage for a mental illness. I know I have barely started my personal mental health journey yet, but with each post, we get closer to the goal of understanding what it really is like to live and fight this battle every day. The next entry in the series will be on Wednesday at 9AM. Look for the title of "My Trust Issues are Kristoff" - Why Trust is Difficult to Gain and Critics Easy to Listen To
Until next time!