Just try to imagine..

The other day I received a sort of guided imagery scenario.  Not for relaxation, but to provide a glimpse into a window, a scary window most never consider.

Imagine you are dropped into Iraq with nothing.  You dont speak the language. You are not dressed appropriately.  Not for the conditions.  Not for the region.  No food.  No water.  What do you do?  Stay put?  Walk and look around?  Walk and look for help?  Since you dont know the language or the body language and mannerisms are you even able to recognize if someone is offering you help, or is threatening you?  If you decide they are trying to help, do you accept it?  or shy from it since you are clearly a White/Westerner, and frankly you are not in Kansas anymore. If you turn the help down are you in more danger,  more jeopardy?  If you accept the help do you allow yourself to trust the person helping you?  Or while accepting the help are you immediately looking for an path of escape if needed. Trying to take in every site, sound, smell, in case it can help to save your life.  Do you risk sleeping?  If you do, is it restful or fitful?  How long can you keep this up.  Its likely horribly exhausting physically, and mentally/emotionally crushing.  How many days can you keep it up?  One?  Two?  Ten?  A Month?  If you were stuck in a world that was foreign; a world you did not understand; a world that didnt understand you; could you be happy? would you forget what its like to be happy?  What if, you never knew what happiness was prior to this?  What view would you have of the world?  If you suddently treated kindly and with Respect; with Love.  Would you even know it?

This is the world that our Kids with trauma have.  Living in a constant war zone.  Unable to control anything.  Those that had such rough starts that its really not possible to fully understand the horrors they have faced.  When the best thing you can say about your entire childhood is that at least your mother cared enough to carry you to term rather than abort you, but not enough to care before, during, or after your birth.

How scary a window is that to look through.  These kids might be 5 or they might be 15 or even 30.   Love can heal many wounds.  But Human love (shaking my head negatively, I think) can only go so far.   Perhaps divine Love can heal all wounds, and when they say "All you need is Love", if its divine, maybe they are right.

I salute you Parents of Trauma.  Few can begin to grasp the depth of the challenges you face each hour of each day.  And that cost extracted from them.