Time Heals?

Thirty years ago today (6^th January 1994) my life was changed in an instant. This came from the click of a trigger on an automatic weapon, which sent six molten missiles into my 21-year-old body. (I have written about that day elsewhere - https://cutdabegs.blogspot.com/2016/01/injured-on-that-day.html)

Some caused flesh wounds. Some severed spinal nerves. Some ruptured organs. Life threatening and life changing.

All left their mark. Not just physically, but in my brain. Onto my psyche. Into my memory.

Looking back over three decades, I now realise that that instance set me on a new path. A new and ever-changing journey. Towards a new life. A new identity. A new me.

It took me a long time to realise this however. The beauty of the passage of time gives us that opportunity to see those long-term changes within ourselves that we miss in the busyness and the humdrum of daily life.

It also took me a long time to understand the reality that I had been traumatised. Many of us use the word for everything these days, even for trivial events. Granted, an event of the type that I experienced would definitely fall into the trauma category, but I didn’t know I was traumatised until I began to understand trauma, to learn about it through psychoeducation. I will come back to this.

No, I just had to get on with it. I am not alone in this. Many who suffered injury or loss during our “Troubles” experienced trauma and didn’t know it.

We were in siloes. Isolated within our families. Medicated. Drunk. High. Looking for ways to cope; not all to our betterment. It was difficult to see another way.

This was my existence for many years. I would not have survived but for the love, support and care of my family and my friends. This was invaluable and can never be repaid. But it wasn’t enough to deal with my ongoing, unrecognised trauma.

What I was missing was knowledge. I was ignorant to my reality. I was living and reliving my trauma. Not in the way of intrusive memories of flashbacks but in the loss of purpose and meaning. I was just living day to day and could not envision the bigger picture. I could not see a future.

This changed in and around 2010 when I became involved with others who had suffered trauma. Whether this was with my friends in the WAVE Injured Group, the wider WAVE Trauma family, or during my time with Victims and Survivors Trust (VAST). This opened my eyes as to how we had all suffered, not just as individuals but as a community. I was no longer alone.

My most profound epiphany, however (seeing as it is the 6th of January), was when I first participated in a short trauma course run by WAVE. “Grief, Trauma and the Helping Relationship” introduced me to the theory and the reality of trauma. My trauma. My reality.

When I read about the effects of trauma on the mind and the body and had it explained to me by the excellent facilitator, I was released from years of ignorance. I could literally feel the rise of the hairs on the back of my neck. My stomach was in knots. My brain hurt. This realisation was gut-wrenching but at the same time cathartic. I wasn’t going mad; I was traumatised.

This set me on the pathway to wanting and needing to know more about trauma. Not just for me but for those around me. This thirst for knowledge had coincided with the opportunity to use my personal experience of trauma for the learning of others: specifically our future social workers and nursing professionals in their schools at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). The Citizen Education programme at WAVE is and will continue to be life-changing for clients as they use their experiences to help our future frontline workers.

Alongside this opportunity to use my story as a positive, I started my degree in Psychological Trauma Studies at QUB. Not only did I gain an understanding of the personal and social effect of trauma, I came upon the concept of Post-traumatic Growth.

This was another life-changing discovery. The path to growth I had been experiencing over this period now made sense. I ticked all the boxes for growth. Having a greater appreciation for life; recognising personal strength; realising new possibilities; developing warmer relationships; and an enhanced sense of my place in the world, were all part of my new experience.

Growth after trauma is facilitated by creating a new narrative about the traumatic experience, finding meaning, and being listened to with empathy from others. I was receiving empathy and love in spades. As such, my trauma was being transformed. My personality and identity was changing.

This gave me the impetus to push on with my education and complete my Master’s and later my Doctorate. The Ph.D thesis was a tribute to the Campaign for Recognition. This saw the eventual success of a courageous group of people, the WAVE Injured Group, my friends, in securing a recognition and acknowledgement scheme for those who were injured during our conflict.

While many deserve gratitude for getting this over the line, this campaign would not have been fulfilled had it not been for the sheer grit of those who had suffered so much pain and trauma in the past. I am proud to have been part of this journey and to know that people are beginning to receive the redress they deserve. However, full recognition for so many others is still to be achieved and I will continue to support this fight.

At the moment, my education journey is coming full circle. While I am always learning about my own trauma, I am in the fortunate position to be an educator through my role as a Trauma Education Officer at WAVE. This gives me the opportunity to teach on the QUB Trauma Studies Degree and at University College Cork on their MA in Trauma Studies.

The most rewarding part of this role, however, is the chance to deliver courses to WAVE clients. To be able to give the power of knowledge to people who suffered trauma in the same way I had is a privilege. I hope this can be an inspiration to them to continue on their own learning journey.

That’s what I got from my own trauma education. I was inspired by those around me. Those who supported me, who encouraged me, who presented me with opportunities, who believed in me. I was lucky.

Looking back to that time in 1994, I was told by someone when I was in hospital that, “Time Heals”. At that point I wasn’t altogether sure that it would. Some wounds have healed but others have left me with persistent physical pain around the clock. But now that I have had thirty years to think about this statement, I can see what they meant in some ways.

Time, however, does not just mean a chronological distance away from the event. I believe it is about how we spend our time. The quality of time.

As I said above, for many years my time was spent living day to day. No real direction or purpose. Just existing. It was only when I began to find meaning again that time became healing. This is not to say that every day is pain-free or full of positives but with the opportunities to spend good quality time with the people I love and on doing things that matter to me and others, I am now able to see my healing and growth in real-time.

Thirty years on from “that day”, as I sit here writing this, I can be truly thankful that I am still alive. The bullets passed through me, but with the passage of time I am now able to see the bigger picture. I am thankful for my family who were there that night to stem the bleeding, to keep me alive, and for their care and love on my long road to recovery. To my friends who stood beside me. And to my Caroline who I love more than she could ever know.

So instead of spending time, like I used to do, on the anniversary of that fateful day, thinking about what was lost, I will be concentrating on what I have gained.

Thank you for reading.