I, Dr. Dom , want to talk about what I have discovered trauma is through the lens of my own painful past.

As a child I suffered from nightmare of fires. Years later I was told that I had survived a bombing raid as baby and my mother did not. I look back at my childhood and I honestly admit that I struggled with feelings of abandonment and rejection, and I still struggle with them. I was an angry child! A ticking time bomb!! As a child, struggled to learn and my memory was affected by my traumatic past . I am 59 and at times I am paralyzed by the very same traumatic childhood fears, and I freeze.

Later I discovered that I had complex trauma. Complex trauma is an insidious and pervasive phenomenon that affects development (arnold & fisch, 2011). I recognized that how my traumatic past affected me. My faith was a coping mechanism or else I would have had a psychosis if I had not dissociated. Alayarian (2011), describes dissociation as a coping mechanism, or an inner psychic space correlated with an inability to manage trauma, mental illness, and neurological issues rationally. Looking back at my life, I was taken aback that I did not feel pain. I had lived a dissociated life. In the past, I isolated myself to shield myself from pain but today I am aware of my inner woundedness.

I am conscious of my dissociation and accept that I am deeply wounded. Interestingly, the etymology or origin of trauma is the Greek for “penetration”, and “wounding” (renn, 2012, p. 19). So, what is trauma? I consider that trauma is insidious, from personal experience, and pervasively wounds or injures an individual’s psyche and impoverishes the person’s ability to be self-directing, relationally connected, and have a purpose or meaning in life (renn, 2012). I feel trauma, not unique to my journey, shattered my self-identity and stripped me of control over my life.

My traumatic journey is not unique. You perhaps silently struggle with the adverse effects of childhood trauma into adulthood. I, as a wounded healer, share in your vulnerability. I found hope and healing in religion. Perhaps, you, too, can find what might bring you healing.