One of the most important parts of my job is teaching a client how to recover after tough times. We all know that life sometimes delivers the unexpected and no matter how ‘balanced’ we are, we can suddenly feel as if we have been flung off a horse at a rodeo! This chapter is about learning how to get back up, reset and move forward when the proverbial hits the fan. At the time of writing, it’s exactly a year since Covid-19 swept the globe. I think most of us would agree that this has been a hellish time. We have regularly been engulfed with worrying headlines and, for many, experiences of illness, death, loss, uncertainty and hardship. Daily life has delivered a darker new reality. For many people, it has been the hardest of times. It has been a traumatic time. And for me this is a crucial point. Tough times often come with some degree of trauma that may get minimised or ignored. In this chapter I will explore tough times through the lens of trauma, no matter how big or small the event. True recovery can begin only when we allow ourselves to deal with what’s happened. Focusing on trauma does just that; it allows space to deal with the event. While this chapter is motivated by the impact of a pandemic, that is not the central focus. The chapter is relevant for all areas of life. It is a roadmap for getting you back on track when you feel as if everything has gone wrong. Admittedly, working though trauma isn’t easy; it takes effort and will feel challenging at times. And no, nothing worthwhile is ever easy, but the benefits are indisputable. I promise that, step by step, you will start to feel better. In the following pages, we will explore in more detail why we struggle or get ‘stuck’ in tough times, how to move forward, the benefits for your life and what’s needed of you. How we recover during times of adversity is ultimately determined by how we respond. The event is just the trigger. Everything else is linked to how our internal processes deal with what’s going on.

DEFINE TOUGH TIMES AND UNDERSTAND TRAUMA

All of life comes to a therapy room, and if the walls could talk, we’d hear about: loss, bereavement, break-ups and relationship problems, redundancy and work issues, bullying, hardship and health issues. The list is endless.

I believe that there are two types of trauma: ‘tall T trauma’ and ‘small t trauma’. When someone has been through a tall T trauma it’s possible that they might then experience PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). Symptoms for this range from flashbacks, intrusions (mentally re-experiencing the event) and nightmares to feeling highly anxious or avoiding situations that trigger memories. These can feel debilitating and make functioning day to day a big challenge. The pain of PTSD is unimaginable to those who don’t understand it and such a level of trauma requires professional support. While I give some pointers in this chapter, if you feel that you have PTSD, then undoubtedly further face-toface support will be needed. Please don’t hesitate to talk to your doctor or a professional for guidance. Here my focus will primarily be small t traumas that create tough times. Small t trauma also creates distress, but not at the same level as tall T trauma. There may be a few milder symptoms of PTSD, but more obvious changes will likely be visible with mood, motivation and anxiety. When I meet people in therapy, I often see lots of small t traumas that have been ignored. Unsurprisingly this is often the root of their symptoms, and they need to be dealt with. When you don’t process a difficult period in your life, the unprocessed material can contribute to some of the psychological symptoms you experience. It is also part of the reason why you might be struggling to pick yourself up. Many people feel that it is easier to avoid, numb or ignore the uncomfortable traumatic times in life. In the short term the avoidance creates relief, but in the longer term the issues accumulate.

Whatever it is you’re struggling with in your life at the moment, I’m sorry you are having a difficult time. I can’t wave a magic wand and make your problem disappear, but together we can make sense of your experience and help you come through it stronger.

WHY YOU GET STUCK IN TOUGH TIMES

In my experience, no matter how awful the circumstance or events, people respond differently in dark times. I remember speaking to 85-year-old Derek who had survived fighting in the Second World War, PTSD, bankruptcy and cancer, to name but a few. After his wife died last year, he ‘emotionally collapsed’, wondering if he would ever get up again. He eventually found his way back. Derek was clearly grieving for his wife, but there were other factors aggravating his pain. His wife had died suddenly and Derek had attempted to resuscitate her. He believed he’d ‘failed’ her when she was pronounced dead. Several months later, he began experiencing some mild trauma symptoms consisting of intrusive images of the event and replaying details, while partially blaming himself for her death. Consequently, he was withdrawing from life, drinking every night and showing signs of depression. His grief was the trigger for his pain, but he wasn’t processing any of his loss. His response to the event wasn’t allowing him to deal with the trauma, and so he couldn’t heal and learn to adapt to life without his wife.

How many of the following ways of ‘thinking’ do you relate to as you deal with the traumatic periods in your own life?

  • This shouldn’t be happening, I can’t accept this
  • Bad things always happen to me
  • I have no control over how I deal with this
  • This is so unfair • Why is this happening?
  • I can’t deal with this
  • I’m weak and powerless
  • Maybe it’s all my fault?

How many of the following behaviours do you identify with during traumatic periods?

  • Socially withdrawing
  • Angry outbursts
  • Dropping routines
  • Disengaging from work, hobbies, interests
  • Increasing eating, alcohol or drug use or other substances
  • Over-engaging with negative content on TV/ social media/radio
  • Disconnecting from talking about feelings
  • Endlessly worrying or overthinking
  • Treating yourself unkindly
  • Hypervigilance to situations that make you feel unsafe?

And, of course, we can’t exclude the following feelings during traumatic periods that you may experience:

  • Sadness
  • Anxiety
  • Panic
  • Confusion
  • Numbness
  • Despair
  • Fear
  • Loneliness

I encourage you to make a note here of the symptoms you’re experiencing as it’s important to be able to look at this truthfully. The lists here are not exhaustive, so you may have some of your own to add.

I’m confident that if you identify with any (or all) of the thoughts, behaviours and emotions on the list, it’s time for you to stop, reset and recover.

I believe there are four key psychological reasons (besides the life event you have experienced) that will help explain obstacles to your recovery:

  • Trauma has never been fully processed
  • You are not prioritising self-care/self-compassion
  • Denying the aftermath of trauma
  • You are self-sabotaging your own recovery

I appreciate that this might sound prescriptive, but I know it’s true. Life events have many narratives, but human responses tend to be familiar in the face of suffering.

1. TRAUMA HAS NEVER BEEN FULLY PROCESSED

When we experience a traumatic event and it isn’t processed (dealt with) properly, the memory stays active on the right-hand side of the brain in an unhelpful way, creating symptoms such as severe anxiety, depression, flashbacks, intrusions, hypervigilance and avoidance. These are the symptoms of PTSD (tall T trauma). The aim of treatment is to process the memory so that it moves to the hippocampus on the left-hand side of the brain. This enables the memory to be filed away in a safe place, leading to a reduction in symptoms. In short, this will mean that the trauma has been processed. It’s important to know that a similar process can take place with small t traumas. The symptoms of PTSD may not be as acute, but the residual anxiety and symptoms of depression are. Unless you pay attention to the underlying maintenance of anxiety and/or depression (i.e. trauma), the symptoms will keep coming back.

2. NOT PRIORITISING SELF-CARE/SELF-COMPASSION

We live in a world where there seems to be an expectation that we ‘keep calm and carry on’, even in the hardest of times. Similarly, there are views everywhere that self-care is a little self-indulgent or ‘fluffy’. Compromising self-care and self-compassion comes with great risk because they are the foundations for stability and recovery. When we fail to look after our mental wellbeing, we suffer more. When we fail to be compassionate to ourselves, we delay recovery.

Can you imagine having major surgery and expecting to continue as normal directly afterwards? Of course you can’t. There would be a period of rest, recovery, time out of work, adjustments, medical appointments and a general need to take care of yourself. All of this would be necessary to enable recovery from the surgery. It’s similar with emotional wounds after a traumatic time. But most don’t prioritise care in the same way. We carry on as normal, minimising pain and believing that it will somehow magic itself away.

It will come as no surprise that that’s never the case.

3. DENYING THE AFTERMATH OF TRAUMA

I would be rich if I had a penny for each time I heard someone say:

  • I'm OK, it's no big deal
  • There are people worse off than I am
  • I don't want to make a fuss
  • I don't need any help
  • It's not so bad
  • I get by
  • It's just one of those things

The reality is, it’s hard for most of us to be vulnerable and accept that life hasn’t been going so well. It is difficult to say, ‘I’m not coping’ or ‘I’m struggling’. I hear people regularly say that they fear rejection or worry they will be seen as weak if they admit vulnerability. So, they opt for denial and pretend to cope. Unfortunately, this comes at a cost for mental wellness.

The denial of uncomfortable feelings that tend to come after traumatic times creates a whirlwind of internal conflict. A battle occurs between covering up what’s going on while trying to function ‘normally’. The problem here is that emotions begin to ‘backlog’. In time they accumulate and eventually erupt like a volcano!

Denial is a form of repression that tries to bury difficult emotional experiences. The problem is that emotions have a strong charge and tend not to give up until they have been dealt with. Short-term denial creates some ease; in the longer term it breeds a host of other psychological issues. It’s almost as if the emotions persevere to create a sense of discomfort that eventually forces us to pay attention. So, the next time you are experiencing some negative emotions, it’s worth bearing in mind that they could be a wake-up call to pay attention to what’s going on within you. Often the way out of difficult times is to go inwards.

4. SELF-SABOTAGE

There is a saboteur within most of us – a part of us that sometimes whispers and screams:

  • You're not good enough
  • It's your fault
  • You don't deserve good things
  • You're helpless
  • You're unlovable
  • You're hopeless

As adults we learn how to manage our saboteur – for the most part. At times of trauma, though, it has the annoying habit of dropping by for a visit. But our saboteur is not a welcomed visitor. It normally comes with a host of unhelpful judgements, opinions and criticisms. It’s almost as if our shadow side identifies an opportunity in moments of strife. Being aware of this is essential as it gives you the power to deal with your saboteur.

I heard this articulated brilliantly by a client, Ian, who, after a long period of systemic bullying in his workplace, was made redundant. He subsequently suffered a breakdown. In his darkest moments, he likened his saboteur to Eeyore in Winnie-the-Pooh. Thankfully Ian learnt to identify his saboteur and challenge the unhelpful, biased narrative it presented. In time he was able to rewrite a more helpful, self-affirmative script.

HOW TO MOVE FORWARD

Now that you have a greater understanding of the obstacles to resetting and recovery, which can be dealt with both directly and indirectly, it’s time to look at the mechanics of moving forward.

There are three focus areas to resetting from a traumatic or difficult time in life:

  1. Dealing with it
  2. Rewriting the story
  3. Resetting and recovery

FOCUS AREA 1: DEALING WITH IT

The expression ‘deal with it’ can sound harsh. Although not a traumatic event, I remember writing an essay at university and feeling a great sense of satisfaction on completion. It was very short-lived when I discovered I hadn’t saved it properly on my computer. After quite a few expletives, head rubbing and several attempts to recover it, I had to reconcile myself to the fact that the essay was gone. The next day, (also submission day) I told my tutor of the lost essay, hoping for a compassionate response. This wasn’t the case. A hard stare from him with the words ‘Deal with it’ was his offering. I was left with a sense of panic that this was my problem and I had to sort it. This, of course, was true to some extent, but some compassion, flexibility, understanding and a little kindness would have helped immensely.

And this is true of ourselves as we try to reset and recover when we are in a tough space. Telling ourselves to just deal with it and move on, won’t cut it. Yes, I know there are many gurus out there telling us that ‘You’ve got this’ and we need to ‘toughen up’ or ‘move on’. If only our emotions and psychological processes were that simple.

You do, of course, need to deal with whatever has gone on in your life, but it’s how you deal with it that is the game changer. It can be done in two steps:

STEP 1: ACKNOWLEDGING AND ACCEPTING

There is no sugar-coating the fact that this is never easy. I can recount many, many clients recovering from a tough event who say at the start of therapy:

  • I will never get over this
  • I can't accept it's over
  • I can't believe this happened
  • I can't live without him/her
  • This should never have happened
  • I don't want to deal with this
  • I don't want to talk about this
  • I want to forget about this and talk about something else

The list goes on, but responses are familiar. The solution lies in moving towards acknowledging, accepting and dealing with what has happened.

Acknowledging is allowing yourself to admit that a terrible event has happened. It is recognising that resisting or denying will aggravate your suffering. It is worth remembering that you have survived the event/s, so you can also survive the aftermath. The moment you give yourself permission to do this, it’s almost like shining a light on the past event and saying, ‘I see you and I’m going to deal with you.’ It is the beginning of healing.

Accepting is also equally challenging. No one wants to accept the ‘bad’ times or awful experiences, especially if they have come with great loss and distress. Accepting a past situation doesn’t mean that you are submitting or giving up. It is an act of courage that allows you to deal with your reality as it is, not how you think it should have been. It also doesn’t mean you become submissive and consciously allow yourself to be treated badly in the here and now. There are times when we know it is right and fitting to walk away from situations, people or circumstances that harm us (if we have been able to do so).

I am reminded of Maggie, a client I treated for PTSD after she’d been severely injured in a terrorist explosion. Not only did she lose her job and her mobility, but she was undoubtedly traumatised, anxious and depressed. Therapy involved encouraging Maggie to voice her rage, frustration and sadness. But she had become stuck on the belief that it ‘should never have happened’. This held her in a powerless and hopeless state. While she was right that it should never have happened, the reality was that it had happened and living with that reality was intolerable for her. 

Through treatment, Maggie was able to set about working on acknowledging and accepting her story. This was the beginning of her resetting and recovering. It took time, patience and a great deal of self-compassion. It was a first step.

STEP 2: SHARING THE STORY

Everyone needs to tell their stories sometimes, particularly in darker periods. It can be cathartic and therapeutic. I encourage you now, in whichever way it feels comfortable, to begin sharing the story of the trauma that you are working through.

If it feels necessary, you might want to do this with a professional. If the distress feels manageable, then you might feel safe to share with someone you trust. Simply tell the story as it is, without judgement. This will create a sense of release and help unblock any ‘stuck’ areas.

Alternatively, you can write your experience down in a journal, as a story or any other form you prefer (someone I worked with once wrote theirs as a rap). For others, painting, craftwork, recorded voice or songwriting can be creative means of doing this. The key point is that you are bringing the experience out into the light and allowing it to be told. But it doesn’t stop there. In the world of psychology, we know that when trying to recover from dark times, the human mind can inadvertently sabotage recovery, particularly if the event is unprocessed. This normally plays out as a series of unhelpful beliefs or biased, unkind interpretations around what’s happened. In short, when telling the story, you might notice a lot of harsh judgements, criticism or even self-blaming coming to the fore. To deal with this, you will likely need to replay and rewrite the events again, but this time with rationality, compassion, self-love and care.

FOCUS AREA 2: REWRITING THE STORY

After acknowledgement, acceptance and telling your story, it often becomes clear how much internal sabotaging goes on. Do any of the following thoughts sound familiar to you:

  • Maybe it's my fault
  • I should have known better
  • I should be over this
  • I should have done more
  • I feel so guilty
  • If only I had...
  • Why didn’t I see this coming?
  • I should have been able to stop this
  • I'm so stupid, foolish and naïve
  • I deserve this
  • I can’t be happy again
  • I deserve to suffer
  • I’m weaker than everyone else
  • I’m less able to deal with stuff?

Again, this list could go on, and you may have other thoughts that are destructive and unhelpful.

This is why rewriting the story is crucially important. It’s difficult enough working through what you’ve experienced, but when the voices of judgement, criticism, self-doubt and harshness emerge alongside this, it can feel understandably torturous.

Maggie experienced her self-saboteur a few months after her trauma in the terrorist attack. She critically queried why she had been at the venue at the time of the bomb: ‘Why didn’t I go at a different time?’ She felt guilty that she had survived and others had died. She also felt that she had failed her family after losing her job. She was suffering deeply not only from the impact of the bomb but the explosions in her mind.

I encourage you now to consider going back to telling your story again. Every time you notice that you are ‘giving yourself a hard time’, replace it with something kinder, flexible, open and compassionate. The reality is, whatever has gone on, you most likely did your best with the information, resources and insights you had at the time. This isn’t trying to employ ‘magical thinking’, but a fair, humane, healing perspective that enables you to reset and recover.

The landscapes of events then begin to look different as a more hopeful perspective emerges. Rather than self-sabotaging, think of seeing it in some of the ways listed below:

  • Despite everything, I managed to cope
  • I did my best
  • I now know there was nothing I could have done
  • This wasn't my fault
  • It's incredible I have survived this
  • I still managed to achieve the following in my life…
  • I have learnt so much
  • I have more resilience and courage than I realised
  • Sometimes bad things happen
  • I can grow from this
  • I want to reset and recover.

The path is now set for you to reset, recover and, more importantly, reclaim your life.

FOCUS AREA 3: RESETTING AND RECOVERING

We all know what it feels like after a period of physical illness. We are tired, depleted and need convalescent time. It’s no different after an episode of psychological or emotional trauma. The human brain, like every other organ in the body, can become worn out and needs time to reset and recover.

Everything we have discussed so far is an integral part of this reset and recovery process, but there are a number of other factors that will support recovery:

  • Rest and time out
  • Talking to a trusted friend or professional on an ongoing basis
  • Evaluating the lessons learned from the time of trauma
  • Making adjustments to life that ease everyday pressures
  • Surrounding yourself with people who support and understand you
  • Making plans for the future that excite you
  • Prioritising daily self-care
  • Eating well
  • Exercising: walking or whatever you can manage (it supports continued processing)
  • Considering changes that best support your life
  • Practising compassion in your everyday interactions – it will serve as a reminder to be compassionate to yourself.

Above all, remember that you have a right to reclaim your life. It is yours to live.

CASE STUDY - A TOUGH TIME IN MY LIFE

There have been several periods of challenge in my life over the decades (let’s not focus too much on how many years that spans). But one period that stands out is the aftermath of my mother’s death. She had been ill with cancer for a number of years. In the final stages of her young life, I was very embroiled with a lot of the medical aspects of her care. Then she died. Suddenly I had nothing to occupy my mind. I was left with a sense of emptiness and numbness accompanied by the most overwhelming waves of sadness. But it wasn’t just grief. There were also different degrees of trauma from many harrowing memories of watching someone I loved suffer – and not being able to save them (not dissimilar to Derek, as mentioned earlier). I had to deal with this.

A few months later, I was standing in a bar with a few friends who were merrily singing and dancing. It was unbearable for me to be there as I was engulfed with sadness. I made a polite excuse and left. In the back seat of the cab on the way home, I remember discreetly crying and thinking to myself, ‘I’m not sure I will ever laugh properly again.’ While I was in the depths of sadness and grief, I was equally impatiently trying to ‘fix’ myself and get back to the frivolities of life. It was as if I was desperate for it to be summer when the reality was winter. 

Over the course of many months, a combination of accepting, talking, accommodating the loss and adjusting through this tough period, topped up with a lot of self-care – exercise, walks, meditating – finally enabled me to reset. I was intuitively doing what the psychology research around trauma suggests, even though I hadn’t trained in trauma at that point. Life slowly came back. It wasn’t instantaneous or a euphoric reawakening but gradually lightness emerged. My shoulders dropped, my head lifted and a spark returned somewhere inside. I noticed that I was singing in the shower again and I started to make plans that excited me. My recovery serves as a reminder that we often know what we need to do. The challenge for most of us is translating knowing into doing.

HOW DARK PERIODS CAN IMPROVE YOUR LIFE

I know personally and professionally that dark periods of life can feel overwhelming and neverending. Sometimes life can deal raw, cruel cards that we can’t explain or comprehend. It’s the unthinkable, the unimaginable, the devastating moments that throw us off track. It’s bad things happening to good people that we can’t make sense of.

I can’t answer why things sometimes go wrong. But I know with absolute confidence that dark, traumatic times can teach and strengthen us – if we allow them.

It’s about learning to work through the dark times to find the light. It’s about resetting and recovery, acknowledging and accepting. It’s a willingness to show up, trusting the process that we have worked through. If today you are not feeling hopeful, hold on to hope that tomorrow may be a better day. I know that to be true.

Happiness is always possible again. In the times when you feel like you are falling apart, you are simply rebuilding. In the words of the great songwriter Leonard Cohen, ‘There’s a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.’

May you reset – May you recover – May you know – Life comes back.