Free yourself from family denial

Part 3 — When trauma, invisible for years, becomes visible and obvious (my testimony)

> Listen to the audio version on my Youtube channel : https://youtu.be/U9LnY1Lo134

Hi, I’m Amandine Mas, a trauma informed coach specializing in releasing buried childhood emotions. As I shared with you in the previous article, a release of childhood trauma can last several months, even years (as was the case for me).

Why? Because we often feel embarrassed, ashamed of the emotions resurfacing. We find it difficult to ask for help, and sometimes, we don’t ask the right people.

We first seek allies in our families (since that’s where the trauma was created), then with our partners and best friends (as they are the ones who know us best).

And sometimes, it hurts, we regret it.

It can be a tough moment to realise that the people we love the most are the ones who have the power to hurt us the most. We have given them this power, and we don’t know how to take it back.

Our loved ones may, for example, MINIMISE what we confide in them (“that happened a long time ago, move on”), they may RIDICULE our emotions (“you’ve always been a drama queen”), or they even may completely DENY the existence of our trauma (“childhood is a time of happiness for children, you exaggerate”).

In any case, we feel disappointed, lost, betrayed, even re-traumatized. We come out of the illusion. Suddenly, we don’t feel understood or truly believed. Inevitably, the shame and guilt inherent in childhood traumas surge up, piercing through the roof.

Yet, it’s precisely at that moment when the vault of our childhood emotions opens that we most need to act, to ask, to be supported, to speak, and to be believed.

If we cannot share our strong emotions with trusted individuals, we may isolate ourselves further in avoidance behaviours, addiction, or codependency.

If this is the case, self-esteem is further compromised, and the situation is once again blocked.

Yes, it may feel like going back to the beginning, to regress. But that’s not the reality.

We are simply facing the widespread denial of society and families towards the word “trauma” and its emotions, that are real.

My message today is that :

If your past emotions resurface, it means you have already made significant progress on your path to resilience. It’s an important step, even if it’s undervalued by our competitive society.

Expressing yourself, expressing these emotions, or simply writing them down in your journal, talking about what you’re going through, freeing your voice can change everything.

If I’m recording this podcast, it’s because I have often faced denial, I have often felt discouraged when the people I chose to confide in, especially in my family circle, were not equipped to listen and help me.

If I’m writing this article, it’s because I’ve lived through this situation dozens of times, until a particular day when family denial went too far… And I could finally break free from it.

It was January 13, 2023.

My mom had come to visit me in Asia for the first time. We were on vacation on Phu Quoc Island in Vietnam, enjoying a glass of wine in a beautiful tranquil resort.

That’s when she naively opened a conversation about a sensitive and taboo subject: childhood sexual abuse, and its heavy consequences on the lives and health of so many adults.

Like all of us unfortunately, Mom has many friends who were abused and devastated in childhood. She starts sharing with me the details of a friend whose life is painfully affected by this betrayal that shatters so many childhoods. This person has suffered in silence all her life because the acts were never acknowledged by her family.

Mom launches into detailed explanations to make me understand the hell her friend is going through.

A hell I know all too well, but that my mom, apparently, has forgotten.

At that moment, my whole body freezes.

My body understands what my mind doesn’t want to comprehend. Heavy tears stream down my cheeks as mom gets up to go to the bathroom. I quickly dry them. I don’t want her to see me. I know she will tell me I’m overreacting.

But my body decides otherwise. It explodes without warning.

My tears keep flowing. It’s as if they had been waiting patiently for this moment to open the floodgates.

When Mom returns, she’s angry, I’m ruining her vacation on the other side of the world… So, I shut myself away in my guilt of being “too sensitive”, “too emotional” about this sexual trauma that occurred 35 years ago.

I’m ashamed. I head to my room. And I’m going to stay there for 2 days.

It’s in this bed, in this bungalow, that I am going to be hit by what my intuition has been telling me clearly for 35 years:

Neither my mother, nor my father, nor the rest of the family, have seen the pain left by this rape that tore me away from my childhood when I was 5 years old.

I always knew it, but I believed them….

For 35 years, I didn’t trust that little voice deep inside me. Out of loyalty to my family, out of “love” (or rather out of sacrifice), I chose to endure “double punishment”:

• The assault, the traumatic event itself, which deeply disrupts the body, the brain, the relationships…
• And the family denial, which multiplies the shame and guilt of the child growing up thinking it’s their fault, that they are worth less than others

My parents weren’t ready when my trauma occurred.

They weren’t emotionally mature enough to welcome a little girl wounded by life and scarred in her deepest intimacy. Like many parents, their brains “dissociated” from this too sad and violent reality.

It’s a proven act:

In the majority of early traumas, families are not aware of the consequences of their denial, considered by doctors as emotional neglect.

Our loved ones didn’t see that following the trauma, we grew up in constant fear, that we tried to hide behind masks, that this fear never went away, that it remained stuck in the body…

… And in adulthood:

Pain is an alarm signal.

On January 13, 2023, when Mom awkwardly triggered my buried emotions, I retreated to the depths of my bed to try to suppress them again.

That’s not what happened.

On the contrary, it’s the moment my body and brain chose to communicate to me what I had forgotten through flashbacks, muscle contractions, tremors, and intense emotions, fear, grief, confusion and panic erupting from my chest like rockets.

I didn’t see the images of my assault (because I was too young when it happened), but I felt the associated emotions and sensations, as if I were there, because they were intact inside me. Everything was still there.

That day, unexpectedly, the truth bursted out.

My trauma, invisible for 35 years, became visible, obvious.

Everything I always wanted to avoid (for fear of disturbing) had just exploded. Everything my family superbly denied was revealed.

A new anxiety rose…

What will they think? Will they still love me? What if I disappoint them?

This part of me, this child in me, who was afraid, told me it was the end. When in fact, it was just the beginning of my new life, my true life.

Deep down, I must confess to you dear reader… I was relieved.

A part of me was waiting patiently for “this”. While my “loyal part to the family clan” was struggling to hide everything.

Deep down, I knew it was going to happen. I (unconsciously) prepared for it. At least the highest part of me…

It couldn’t go on.

What if this were the perfect opportunity to let go of my burden? What if this revelation would change my life for the better?

That’s exactly what happened.

Since that day, I feel free to slowly express who I am, beyond fear. Since that day, I feel free to slowly fulfil myself, beyond the shame and guilt of the trauma, which were exacerbated by the weight of family silence.

It was the end of traumatic amnesia and the beginning of post-traumatic life.

Thanks to the support of relationships I have chosen that provide me with safety (whether it’s my partner, my friends or my therapist), I have been writing more and more, I have been sharing, speaking, learning, coaching, facilitating, supporting other people, transmitting, on this blog, on my podcast on Youtube. I can’t stop being me anymore.

And inside me, everything is slowly reorganising:

I’m learning how to find clarity of thought in my brain, how to create freedom in my body, how to anticipate, consciously, my emotions before they explode, how to develop my capacity for consent in my sexuality….

But that’s not all.

The most amazing change is deeper. It speaks of reconciliation, dialogue, and compassion with that child still alive inside me. I increasingly nurture affection for this little girl who has been so wounded and so brave all these years.

It’s with her that I can write, speak, translate my research and turn it into an expertise : the liberation of buried emotions from childhood.

My pain was hidden, a secret, but it’s not anymore.

Today, I am no longer ashamed of what happened to me. By expressing my inner world to trusted individuals, I have freed myself from family loyalties and regained my integrity and dignity.

The pieces of the puzzle of my life come together to reveal a beautiful image of me…

As the forgotten fragments of trauma resurface in my consciousness and reassemble in my brain, I become whole again, grounded, present, and consenting.

The truth is liberating.

Expressing our childhood emotions with trusted individuals is like disinfecting an abscess in order to clean and close it. This disinfection of suffering creates a deep and profound sense of relief.

When this time is right for you, know that :

It’s possible to release what hurts within you, to stop self-destructing and sacrificing yourself, to extract yourself from those endless states of depression, addiction, codependency, loyalty, pain, and chronic stress, which are nothing but bugs in your system that were created and accumulated many years ago.

You are not alone. There are millions of us around the world hiding our emotions from the past so as not to disturb people around us. What if we helped each other?

Mutual aid is exactly what we need…

The fact that those around us have turned a deaf ear doesn’t mean that we have made everything up. And it doesn’t mean that our post-traumatic stress disorders will stop.

It means that we need to talk to other people, more qualified or a little less close to us, less anxious to see us change, to see us heal, and evolve.

We need to remove our masks with safe relationships based on trust, compassion, and support. This is the case in a therapeutic or coaching relationship.

We need to be trusted 2000% in order to, at our own pace, bring consciousness and meaning to what is resurfacing from childhood.

The goal of this step is above all to believe in yourself, and to recreate a life story that respects you (instead of crushing you), that reduces your shame and increases your compassion for all the parts of you that are still traumatised.

This crucial step where you can finally let go of your childhood burden is like a lock breaking, gently and gradually, revealing a new door in front of you.

For that, It is important to be well surrounded and supported to listen to the voice of that child within you, to accept what he or she has experienced and to believe in him or her above all. This will allow you to welcome a new and resilient you, to soothe and integrate your past, consciously, to open a new chapter of your life: your post-trauma life, which holds very beautiful surprises for you.

This is what we will do together in the next article.

> In the meantime, I invite you to book your free consultation with me if you are ready to see how trauma informed coaching can help you find your best solutions, which are already there, inside you.

Amandine Mas — Emotions and Writing Coach on https://www.instagram.com/amandine_emotional_freedom

🧚‍♂️ Discover the 4-Step Emotional Coaching Programm “From Trauma to Love” : https://amandinemas.com/from-trauma-to-love-coaching/

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🧚‍♂️ Downlaod for free my book “From Wounded to Empowered — A guide to live better with your emotions, your intuitions and in your relationships using a simple notebook” : https://amandinemas.com/download_from_wounded_to_empowered_book

🧚‍♂️ Watch my videos and podcasts on Youtybe : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZRwLALL7PnYn5qVfUgmPyw