Facing Trauma

Dear Tony,

I know you have some serious trauma in your past which you think about often. I do, too. The majority of people with mental illness do. How it affects our illness is difficult to understand.

Facing this has been difficult for me. Often it is difficult to think about. If I try to write or say precisely what happened I fall apart. I can only deal with little pieces at a time. Even now.
That does not mean I can't improve.

One serious issue is the guilt surrounding my trauma. I wasn't totally innocent. I did do some things wrong. Often, when people wanted to help me, they implied that I was pure and innocent. Or that what happened vastly outweighed anything I had done. But my guilt was still in a ball inside of me. I couldn't release it. I wasn't even sure I should. If people said I was innocent, I felt that ball pressing against me.

I wasn't innocent. I did do some things wrong. I just felt like I had been sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor for a misdemeanor. I think that is common.

Don't let go of your sins -- you have probably realized by now that you can't -- but try not to dwell on them either. Try to think about what you can do. What would make you feel better now? Do you need to find ways to atone or do you need to heal yourself overall for now? Do you need to start to work through what happened directly or do you need better ways to protect yourself? Each person is different. No one can answer those questions for you.