Can It ‘End With Us’?

The unfortunate truth about trauma is that you can’t mind-set your way out of its effects on how you show up in the world - you can’t simply ‘decide’ for it to ‘end’ with you.

And that’s because trauma not only gets lodged in your MIND (in the beliefs that you inherited and in the behavioural patterns that were handed down to you), but also in your BODY (manifesting in your physical reactivity to perceived threats or danger now, based on what felt threatening or unsafe to you in the past).

Which is why, perhaps contrary to popular opinion, I felt a great deal of empathy for the character played by Justin Baldoni in the film ‘It Ends With Us’.

Because, despite his ‘bad’ behaviour, I understood what was unconsciously motivating it.

The film sets the tone for his portrayal as someone who is emotionally unstable and lacking in impulse control early on, as we see him aggressively kicking over a chair on the roof of his building. This suggestion builds credence as we observe two further tinderbox events unfold: his reaction to getting burnt by a hot baking tray and to being triggered into jealousy.

I don’t deny in any way that his reactivity doesn’t result in abuse, but what the film made me ponder is what seems to be society’s biased judgement around this type of behaviour, depending on who is acting out.

For example, couldn’t many of the reactions that are seemingly casually assigned the label ‘mama rage’ be seen as just as abusive (especially given the relative powerlessness of the victims - dependent children)?

And, if (as seems to be the prevelant societal view right now) mama rage is seen as just a part (albeit a darker, less desirable one) of today’s parenting overwhelm, then shouldn’t we also make the same allowances for stressed out adults such as Ryle, given that the root cause of the shared behaviour - developmental trauma and its effects (repressed emotions) - is the SAME?

Personally, I think our opinion of the perpetrators should be not be influenced by either their status nor gender but by whether there is an unconscious driver behind whatever behaviour we are assessing (there always is) and whether that person is not only aware of their transgressions but is also taking active steps to remedy it.

Like Ryle in the movie, my go-to trauma response - fight - has meant that I too have kicked furniture, punched an ex in the eye and even bitten my partner. I’ve also lashed out at someone with a ski pole, whacked the dog with a towel, thrown a rock at a wall, hit one of my children and thrown a half-empty pan of water towards another.

I share these unacceptable moments from my past to highlight how it is possible to be taken over by a much less reasonable, rational part of ourselves, who can behave in ways that feel totally alien (and indeed abhorrent) to the part of us that is usually in control.

Because the person who takes over just prior to the mama/abusive rage outburst isn’t conscious, regulated, rational, adult you…

It’s Little You, who is not only ‘dealing’ with big emotions in the only way she knows how (the ways she observed her parents attempting to do so), but who is also being taken back to a time when parental coercion produced such helplessness and fear that now, as an adult who is no longer physically powerless, she is fighting for her perceived survival.

And whilst I would like to think that I will never do anything like what I have share above ever again, and whilst I know that it takes a huge amount more for my healed inner child to now cross over into the trauma-response ‘red zone’, I fear that I still carry that potential. A potential I recognised in Ryle.

Because he and I (along with many of my clients) share some of the formative experiences that were laid down in our developing brains - incidences of violence that were not given the space nor safe connection that would have supported us to process them properly at the time.

This not only formed the self-limiting beliefs that we weren’t to be trusted with our emotions, that others weren’t to be trusted with their emotions and that the world is an unpredictable, and potentially dangerous place, but it also created a near-constant, physically and emotionally dysregulated state of semi arousal that meant we spent alot of time ready to be ignited into fight, flight, freeze or fawn by any circumstances that felt similar.

The key difference between me, my clients and Ryle however, is that we are AWARE that we need support to create safety for our inner children, we are aware that old, repressed emotions need to be released in order not to be there to get stirred up again in the present, we are aware that the behaviour that results from our childhood trauma is wrong, and we are WILLING to do anything at all that will change the way in which our past is manifesting in our present reactivity.

Ryle on the other hand, doesn’t reveal any sign that he has already done any work towards healing his past nor does he show any intention of doing so, fuelled by remorse over his actions. In fact, it’s not clear that he has even made any connection between the trauma of his past and his present volatility.

These differences of awareness don’t change the severity of the behaviour (which, I believe, are all equally abusive, however difficult it might be to admit when it comes to looking in one’s own backyard)…

But the result of this awareness and commitment to heal, IS what changes everything.

For it is actually doing the cognitive, somatic, emotional and spiritual work that integrates the wounds of the inner child and releases old, stuck emotion (so that it is simply no longer within you and therefore CAN’T get stirred up again), that forms the foundation for what truly edges you and me (unlike Ryle) that bit closer towards the effects of trauma actually Ending With Us.