Hi, I took some time away from Medium and am now catching up.
I’m glad the article spoke to you.
As for your questions:
- How to manage time spent with family when traumas trigger us?
- Is pursuing financial gain the opposite of Post Traumatic Growth?
I really feel it’s a matter of gradients. These things are tricky and complicated.
Managing family engagements.
For managing engagements with family it’s a matter of how triggering the family interactions are and how much can be planned around.
Some people have to walk away entirely, others create new healthy boundaries.
My family has a lot of trauma and I’ve got plenty of triggers that can get stirred up there if I’m not careful, even when we’re trying to be our best with each other.
After years of going home for long stints of time during the holidays and having breakdowns or manic episodes after I had to start observing what affects me most and creating a game plan around it.
First off I realized that when my family is stressed our interactions overall suffer. This is also true when we’re tired.
So I don’t go home for the holidays because I know they’re at their most stressed point of the year. Instead, I go home during the Summer when my family tends to have more free time.
I also leave by 9 pm as I know people start to get tired around that time.
I’ve observed that I’m much healthier if I stay at a friend’s house and visit my family for 4–5 hours and my interactions with family members tend to be more focused and fulfilling.
So when I visit family now I stay with supportive friends and visit my family 4–5 hours a day for 2–3 days and leave before people get too tired.
This has greatly increased the quality of my interactions as well as my ability to maintain a healthy state of mental health.
Others may not need to be so precise and some people may need to limit time more dramatically or ask that they only see 1–2 family members at a time. I’ve seen some people invite a family member or two out for lunch and another set out for dinner so the group dynamics are broken up and the public environment encourages more cordial interactions.
Self-care is another thing to keep in mind.
If you know you’re emotionally less stable when blood sugar crashes (most of us are) then make sure you have protein and a snack in hand to make sure you’re good to go regardless of what the family chooses to do.
Making sure you’re set up to have a good nights sleep is critical. Planning time after a family experience to rest and calm down, maybe do some meditation or exercise, can also be important.
Focus on material resources after trauma.
I would say the potentially “worrisome” nature of this shift would really be dependent on one’s relationship to financial stability before and after a traumatic event.
For instance, I grew up poor and am still working my way out of poverty.
Growing up, some of the trauma I experienced reinforced the need to make more money because a lack of resources was at the root of many of my family’s difficulties.
After later experiences of trauma and working on childhood trauma I went in the opposite direction and devalued the need for money and financial stability which then led to more financial instability and difficulties.
At one point I spent a night on the street in Portland because I didn’t have any other options. I vowed to myself that wouldn’t happen again unless I chose it.
Personally, I believe a healthy life is one of moderation and often times the middle path.
Unlike my childhood self I don’t obsess about money as the answer to my challenges, neither do I ignore it so much as to create instability in my life.
If a person discovered that a part of their trauma occurred in relation to a lack of resources then it makes sense that they would spend time and effort increasing their access to resources and this is healthy.
The trick is to pursue that financial stability in a healthy means rather than allow it to become an obsession or compensation for the fear of insecurity or lack of power or control.
Hope that answers your questions. Always feel free to ask more.
