Can you compare trauma?

As women, or maybe I should say as a person, we tend to compare ourselves with others. Are we more beautiful, thinner, fatter, smarter, more fashionable? This is how we lived our lives in school and with any luck we have matured past that as we aged or, to be kind, gained experience. Over the years, I would like to think that I have gained enough confidence in my being that I don’t need to be thinner and more beautiful than my peers. My hope is that I can see beyond the mask of my friends and companions and see the beauty that is inside and with luck and providence I am choosing companions that do the same for me. I am SO thankful I survived past middle school!

I heard a speaker yesterday that had many different things to say and yet one statement that stood out in my mind. Trauma is trauma and we cannot compare it. How often do we do just that?

A person’s cat died. Someone who has never had a pet will say they are sorry, but oh well life goes on. But what if a person has had that cat for seventeen years and that cat helped their person get through a nasty divorce or the loss of a child or the death of a parent. That cat was a constant companion through moves and life challenges, a support for their person which is no longer there. The foundation has been compromised. For some people — loosing a cat will be more traumatic than loosing a family member.

My husband died. He was not in the armed forces and shot by the enemy. He was not killed in a terrorist attack. I was not following him and watched while he died in a car accident. He died of a heart attack. Heart disease, the silent killer. No one knew he had issues until it was too late. Yet it was sudden and tragic and painful and no one’s fault.

Trauma – a sudden wound to body or spirit.

It will affect each person differently and somehow we need to reach out for help – sometimes we can get by with help from friends and family and sometimes we will need help from professionals. Knowing the difference is the hard part. Sometimes over time things need to be revisited. Especially at life’s milestones, and yet a bittersweet memory makes us tear up as we smile. I would never say that the loss goes away, but there are days with many more smiles.