Can you think of a time when you were scared, hurt, or stopped cold in your tracks? Are you able to recall an event that forever changed your views on a certain person, place, or thing? What about an experience that rocked you to your core? One that you couldn't forget even if you so desperately tried...
The word "trauma" stems from a Greek word that translates, literally, to mean "wound." This is quite befitting, as the physical, emotional, and mental traumas that many of us are forced to face have become wounds that touch the innermost parts of our beings. Trying to pick up the pieces after a traumatic experience can be anxiety-inducing at best and life-altering at its peak. Searching for healing often means traveling right back through the darkness, and the courage that it takes to simply exist as a person that exuberates melanin magic is often a heavy enough burden to bear in its own right. Examining the ways that our pasts, presents, and futures coincide to create our personal trauma stories is no easy feat. However, one key principle is clear and undebatable:
You are worth whatever work it takes to find the courage to speak again.
Whether your personal form of "speaking" means simply telling yourself that it's OK to feel through the pain or encompasses beginning the healing work that many of us so desperately need, it's all worth it. Your voice, your pain, your experiences that continue to create the masterpiece that is wholeheartedly you - it all matters. From childhood woes to adult terrors, each event that any of us deems as traumatic is just as important as the next. There are no competitions in the realm of healing, no "less thans" or "should have beens." We each have a right to grieve, cry, yell, and process our experiences in whichever ways we deem most fit. What can we do, as women of color, to find our voices after trauma?
Here are some ways to allow your inner light to shine as you foster the strength you need to symbolically speak again.
Speak With A Trusted Source
GiphyYou know what happened. You were there, you took every labored breath and lived through every moment, drawn out in time as if forever could be fully felt. But, have you shared it? Have you been able to talk about what happened; have you allowed yourself the privilege of expressing your truths? Speaking with a trusted source - whether a cherished friend, a mental health professional, or a spiritual counselor - can be a crucial step towards healing. Sometimes, just simply speaking it aloud can be the breakthrough we need to realize that our experience was truly, tangibly real.
Recognize Personal Triggers
Even after having been through similar experiences, each person's trauma can manifest in various ways. Know that it's okay to have completely different emotions than another survivor, and find solace in the fact that your journey is totally valid. Our "triggers" can manifest in many forms, from certain people and places to a singular song on a playlist. You may not even realize that a particular circumstance is bound to elicit a reaction until it does just that. Are there any things that you know of, today, that trigger personal negative responses? Recognizing the events that evoke painful feelings is a heavy step, but it can aid you in working towards having control of future reactions.
Find Strength In Community
GiphyOne of the biggest strengths that we have is our innate bond in sisterhood; use your community to aid and uplift you. We, as black and brown women, are innately magical. We have shared experiences, whether big or small, that have the ability to foster a strong sense of external support. How can you help yourself to heal, and in turn become a source of help for others? What about your story is necessary to share so that the next sister can experience some much needed inspiration on her own journey towards truth-telling? Your story is all your own - and I'm willing to bet that it has the power to change the life of another community member.
Most Importantly, Be Honest With Yourself
Before anyone can find support from external sources, talk about their experiences, or acknowledge familiar triggers, they must begin the work within. You cannot start to heal from a source of trauma that you are not ready to recognize and be honest about. This doesn't need to involve another person, or even have to encompass total forgiveness, but it must be authentic. Being unapologetically you, trauma and all, means that you can start to recognize how your experiences have shaped the woman you are and will continue to become.
Your survival and resilience alone is a testament to your inner strength; your self-vulnerability is proof that you are worthy of going through it to subsequently grow through it. Being honest with ourselves is a process. It may not be easy or swift but it is necessary. As we begin to find our voices after a traumatic experience, we may uncover deep-rooted feelings that we weren't previously aware of. We may cry, sing, yell, write, share, or pray, dealing with our aftermaths can show up in a variety of ways.
However and whenever we choose to own our traumas, we are stronger than we know. Our voice will come in its own time, and when it does, it deserves to be heard.
Featured image by Getty Images
xoNecole is always looking for new voices and empowering stories to add to our platform. If you have an interesting story or personal essay that you'd love to share, we'd love to hear from you. Contact us at submissions@xonecole.com
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Ding. Ding. DING.
A life coach by the name of Thomas Leonard once said that “Clarity affords focus” and, believe you me, when it comes to dealing with other human beings, if you don’t get clear on where you stand when it comes to your interactions with them, you can very easily find yourself “focusing too much” on those who don’t deserve it and too little on those who absolutely do. And y’all, this lil’ PSA couldn’t be more relevant than when it comes to what I call “casual friendships.”
Let’s dig — and for some of us, dig our way out of — what it means to have a casual friend, so that you can get clear on if you really need those in your life…and if so…why?
Article continues after the video.
It Can’t Be Said Enough: Always Remember What “Casual” Means
GiphyThere’s a reason why I decided to share two videos by mental health coach Isaiah Frizzle at the top and bottom of this article. It’s because a lot of what he shares in both of them complements a piece that I wrote for the platform last year entitled, “This Is Just What Purposeful Relationships Look Like.”
It’s the author M. Scott Peck who once said, “Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it” and please believe that the older (and hopefully more mature) you get, the more you tend to see just how valuable — and fleeting — time is; and that is what plays a huge role in motivating you want to only involve yourself with people, places, things and ideas that will honor your time — and when something is casual? In my opinion, it’s highly debatable that it’s worth much of your months, days, hours, or even too many of your minutes.
The main reason why is addressed in an article that I wrote back in the day entitled, “We Should Really Rethink The Term 'Casual Sex.'” The gist? When it comes to relationships, “casual” is certainly not a favorite word of mine because I know what it means. Have mercy — why would you want to invest your time, energy, and emotions into something that is, by definition, apathetic, indifferent, careless, lacking emotional intimacy, and/or is without purpose?
I don’t know about y’all but that sounds like a complete and total crap shoot to me — especially if you are going to go so far as to consider this type of dynamic a true friendship (check out “Ever Wonder If A Friend Is Just...Not That Into You?,” “6 Signs You're About To Make A Huge Mistake In Making Them A Close Friend,” “5 Signs Of A Toxic Friendship That Is Secretly Poisoning Your Life,” “12 Friend Facts That Might Cause You To Rethink (Some Of) Your Own,” and “Less & Less Of Us Have Close Friends These Days. Why Is That?” ).
To me, when you decide to call someone “friend,” it means that they are loyal, reliable, consistent, trustworthy and willing to be there to support you to the very best of their ability — even if it’s inconvenient to do so sometimes (check out “Life Taught Me That True Friendships Are 'Inconvenient'”). How in the world can you expect that from something that has the word “casual” in it?
And you know what? That actually segues into my next point about casual friendships pretty darn well.
Ponder the Purpose “Casual Friends” Serve in Your Life
GiphyA couple of years ago, Verywell Mind published an article entitled, “How the 4 Types of Friendship Fit Into Your Life.” The four that it listed were acquaintances (which I actually don’t consider to be friends; check out “6 Differences Between A Close Acquaintance And An Actual Friend”), casual friends, close friends, and lifelong friends. After reading the piece, I think they consider casual friends to be the “pleasure” friends that I mentioned in the article, “According To Aristotle, We Need ‘Utility’, ‘Pleasure’ & ‘Good’ Friends.”
And although I certainly get that, I think my “cause for pause” is calling those people “friends” when they probably should be called something like an associate or possibly even a buddy instead. Why do I feel this way? Well, I’ve shared in other articles that I think social media has jacked up vocabulary words and their true meaning on a billion different levels.
Take “friend,” for example. Facebook had us out here calling everyone we connected to on their platform “friends” when some of them, we’ve never even spoken to before — and I personally think that influenced, affected and perhaps even infected our psyche to the point where we will call folks, both online and off, “friend” even when they haven’t earned it and/or who possibly don’t deserve it.
That said, do I think that we all could use lighthearted interactions that don’t go very deep and are filled with not much more than fun? Sure. However, if we were to move this over into a sexual thing — those types of people would probably be called a sneaky link, and there is nothing significant or substantial about ‘em. In fact, if anything pretty much automatically comes with an expiration date, sneaky links would have to be it.
And that’s kind of the point that I’m trying to make about a casual friend — so long as you know that the word “casual” is being used to describe them, while you may enjoy the people who fit that bill, they aren’t really anything that you can or even should fully rely on. Instead, take them for what they are and don’t really expect much more than that. Otherwise, you could be in for some profound levels of disappointment. And who wants that?
Final point.
How a Casual Friend Can Become a Huge Red Flag
GiphyI’m telling you, y’all gonna quit clowning Tubi. LOL. To me, the best way to describe it is it’s the Cricket of current streaming apps. What I mean by that is, back when Cricket (the cell phone service) first came out, people, like me, who used it service got incessantly clowned because it was seen as a bootleg provider. Now it’s owned by AT&T, and as someone who has rocked with them since I was in my 20s, I don’t have one regret for doing so. Cricket has always been good to me, chile.
And Tubi? Well, when you get a chance, check out CNBC’s article, “CEO at 33, Tubi’s Anjali Sud on success hacks she learned at Amazon, IAC on way to top of Fox streaming” — take note of the moves the streaming app is making and the quality of programming that is transpiring in real time.
Anyway, I find myself bringing up Tubi more and more in my content because it helps to amplify some of the points that I like to make. This time, it’s a movie that’s (currently) on there calledRight Man, Wrong Woman. If you haven’t seen it before, I don’t want to give too much of the film away. What I will say is that the main female character, she had a casual friend and then she had a close friend.
That casual friend—the one who liked to kick it all of the time—was a lot of fun; however, dealing with her came with a ton of semi-unforeseen consequences. Meanwhile, the close friend? She’s what the Aristotle article (that I mentioned earlier) would call the “good friend” because she tried her best to hold her friend accountable.
And really, it shouldn’t be a shock that the casual friend turned out to be a plum trip because if someone is loads of entertainment and pleasure and yet they are indifferent towards you, they make careless decisions around you and/or they don’t really make known the purpose for you being in their life other than to pass some time — where really do you and that person have to go past drinks after work or dinner on a rooftop restaurant from time to time? And if that is all that the two of you are doing, again, why are they deserving of the word “friend”?
Hmph and don’t get me started on the lack of reciprocity that typically transpires when it comes to dealing with people like this because, while they won’t mind you spending your coins on them, taking their calls in the middle of the night or listening to all of their issues — when it comes time for them to show up for you, they very well may gaslight you into thinking that you are being dramatic, clingy or “doing the most.” Why? Well, it’s mostly because the two of you never really established what the hell the both of you are to one another.
And so, while you’re somewhere taking them seriously, they are out here seeing you casually, and as much as it might hurt to hear, that doesn’t automatically or necessarily make them a bad person. You shouldn’t expect much where no clarity is involved. After all, casual is just that: CASUAL.
____
I’m hoping that you can now see why I entitled this piece in the way that I did. It’s because a red flag is pretty much a warning, and to me, a casual friend is about as big of an oxymoron (again, to me) as casual sex is. Friends and sex are both too intimate to be seen or treated casually. Oh, but if you step out and take that risk, you could find yourself getting far more involved than the other individual ever wanted to go, because casual is how things have always been. “Friend” was simply to get you more mentally and emotionally invested. SMDH.
American columnist Walter Winchell once said, “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” A wise person once said, “One good friendship will outlive forty average loves." Former President Ulysses S. Grant once said, “The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity.” Does any of this sound casual to you? Yeah, me neither.
Again, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have people in your life who aren’t on deep levels. I’m just saying that you might want to consider putting them into another category than friend, because what friends do for people? There ain’t nothin’ even remotely casual about it, sis. Not even a lil’ bit.
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