When I was still carrying a lot of trauma inside of me, I could do some amazing things that looked to the outside world very much like courage. One example is when I travelled alone to South Africa, staying in a township where gang members got extra points for raping tourists. Whilst there I worked as a social worker and would regularly be required to drive into some of the roughest areas, in order to remove abused and severely neglected children. Myself and a colleague would go very early to try and avoid the locals being awake, keeping our car doors locked as we drove up really close to the small, neglected kids left outside. We would then literally jump out of the car, grab them and hurtle away at top speed. Looking back it’s hard to believe I did this! During this period of my life, I also worked in a women’s prison in South Africa, where I was searched for guns every day, and had to have a prison officer accompany me at all times in case of attack. Quite something eh?
I did all of this by myself, and it might appear courageous, but in truth it is easy to do risky things when you are traumatised and dissociated. Because in order to feel fear, you have to be present and in your body, and at that time in my life, I was neither. I also knew fear so well that it felt like a familiar friend to me. Taking risks with my own safety was all I really knew.
I have worked with so many women over the years like myself, who have found it so easy to do risky or ‘crazy’ things. Like stripping naked in public, (I mean at a party, rather than a changing room), or having unprotected sex with multiple partners without blinking. Not from a place of sexual liberation or enjoyment though, but from the ceiling. Completely dissociated from their experiences, looking down at what unfolds to that stranger’s body lying on the bed below.
That’s called trauma.