"In trauma recovery, it's important to consider what happened. It's equally, if not more important to consider, what happened next, which is often where the deepest wounds lie." Find Your Sunshine Therapy
I read this and felt that it immediately opened up space to look around more deeply.
What often happens, at least in my experience, is that the trauma stands alone.
Segregated from the rest.
An island of trauma in an otherwise normal life.
However, it is more often just one huge red flag in a sea of red flags.
If you don't look upon what happened next, you will not be able to see clearly.
It isn't so much that I was abused, but what happened next, OR more, what didn't happen next.
In looking at what happened next, you will find answers you may not want to know.
People acting in ways that were not about the safety of the children, and standing against abuse.
Looking into what happened after, you can see more clearly the agendas of people and organizations.
If nothing happened next.
If life continued on as if nothing happened, that is a sign.
In my experience, the worst wasn't the abuse that happened, it was what didn't happen next.
There wasn't a safe place to be.
When family does nothing, when the minister of the church does nothing, when neighbors do nothing, it adds layers and layers, to the wound.
So many want to isolate the wound as being the sole responsibility of the abuser. However, he is either supported or reported.
I love this train of thought, "What happened Next". Most will not go down this road, because most truly do not want to know. There is a cost to being curious, you will see folks being apathetic to abuse.
Art made for me by my daughter.
I feel that in order to truly heal from trauma, you have to continue to ask, "What happened next?" Keep going until you get the full scope and breadth of what happened.
