Finding Hope When You Feel Like Humpty Dumpty

You are Not Your Trauma - Inspirational Women Series

I AM NOT MY TRAUMA!

Whether you’ve endured a circumstance or a lifetime of circumstances that collectively add up to your trauma, you are not your trauma. It takes courage to move into a space where you can openly exclaim that. And I mean exclaim it, because sometimes people don’t hear you unless you shout.

How often have you heard people cluck their tongues and talk about that poor child who was molested or that poor woman in an abusive relationship, or those poor soldiers that have PTSD, or those poor children who went through a school shooting? And if you are an individual who has wrestled with suicide ideation or had an incomplete suicide, people treat you differently after the event. They treat you like you are broken, irreparable, and as if your trauma is contagious and somehow affects/impacts them more than it does you. But you are not your trauma.

Trauma is as an event or circumstance resulting in:
physical harm, emotional harm, and/or life-threatening harm.

Individual trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.

Trauma is debilitating and “traumatic events can have deleterious effects on health at any age.” So getting to hope after trauma feels like an impossibility. I am here to tell you it isn’t impossible. Hope is possible. Healing is possible. And freedom from fear and the things that are triggering is possible.

Trauma

My path to hope after trauma was long and at times arduous - don’t panic, that may not be your journey. When life came to a standstill for me and I could no longer cope my brain let me know enough was enough. I was enduring a thousand little cuts and honestly didn’t interpret it initially as trauma. I knew it was oppressive, offensive and wasn’t fair, but I didn’t see myself as traumatized. I was coping until I couldn’t anymore and a lifetime of injustices tumbled down over me. In that instance I felt like Humpty Dumpty:

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again."

For me the reason why the king’s horses and the king’s men could not put me back together again was because they trampled on my broken pieces in their hurry to repair me. And in all the clamor they instead trampled me into little pieces which then blew away with the wind. There was nothing left for anyone to repair. So I walked around with deep gashes, open wounds that were holes in me, pieces that were forever broken, shattered, and seemingly irreparable.

And that is how mental health can be after trauma. I was in crisis, and the very people who came to help me actually traumatized me more. For me they reacted to my crisis in violent ways that stigmatized me, harmed me, and forced me into a deep dark hole that did not heal me.

I went to mental health professionals who thought the solution was to push me - because in their mind for me to heal from years of being bullied was to bully me during counseling sessions. Those mental health professionals¹ did not help me, instead they harmed me. And more pieces of myself broke off and fell to the ground.

When I was in extreme crisis the police came to my home. They did not help me, they instead used extreme violence by throwing me to the floor, handcuffing me, parading me in front of my neighbors, carting me off to a facility where they strip searched me, held me against my will and effectively handcuffed my free will. More chunks broke off of me, fell to the floor and shattered.

When I managed to get away from the people who were supposedly there to help me with my trauma, but were instead causing me more harm, I pulled deeply into myself. I hid in my home and shut myself off from the world. I told myself it was to heal, but I am not a healer, so I didn’t heal. My wounds festered, the holes in me widened, additional pieces of me fell off onto the floor and shattered.

How I Got to Hope

So how did I get to hope and healing? I spent years crying out to God, “this isn’t sustainable,” “this is untenable,” which I touched on it in my first post, under the heading The Gift of “BE:”

God did a few things in my heart to move me from despair to hope:

1. God spoke the word “Be” into my spirit. And that first post details how through my cat Milo the Holy Spirit showed me how to “be” in the moment. Through this lesson on “be” my focus shifted from trauma to being in the present. Milo’s purring, the sound of the wind in the trees, the chirping of the birds on the electrical wires, etc. all helped to center me and anchor me in the present where the trauma was not happening.

2. God encouraged me to reach out to a church to pray for me. In James 5:14-16 it states: ¹⁴ Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. ¹⁶ Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
   
   As the scripture states prayer is effective and powerful. The prayers offered up on my behalf by the church and my act of obedience to God to contact the church for prayer moved me from a space of deep darkness to light. It is a mystery to me how it happened and only can be explained as an act of God’s mercy and grace.

3. God led me to scriptures about His promises of hope and not despair:

   1. Proverbs 13:12 (NIV): "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."

   2. Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV): "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

   3. Psalm 94:19 (NKJV): "In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul."

   4. Psalm 34:18 (NIV): "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."

   5. Romans 15:13 (NIV): "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

   6. Isaiah 41:10 (NIV): "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

   7. Lamentations 3:22-23 (NIV): "Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."

   8. Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV): "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

4. God encouraged me to join a church (I decided to join the church that prayed for me). Through that act of obedience and adherence to Hebrews 10:25 (NIV): "Not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching." brought me much needed connection.
   
   At a leadership conference that I attended January 25, 2025 just over one year since I joined the church, I approached one of the leaders to thank her. I told her that her touchpoints after I joined the church and her being intentional made me feel welcomed. Every Sunday, she would give me a hug and say an encouraging word. For the first few months after joining the church she provided human contact that I was devoid of the previous 10 years. She didn’t know I was shut-in for a decade from trauma. She didn’t know that she was pretty much the only human contact I would have until the next week. She didn’t know how healing her touch, smile and words of encouragement were to me. She didn’t know until I told her on January 25th how much her kindness meant to me. A gift most certainly given to her from God.

5. God instructed me to forgive. December 2023 I started reading the book The Bait of Satan by John Bevere. It took me months to finish the book, because the book has you working on some hard heart stuff. Through the book I realized that I had a mountain of offense that was drowning me in unforgiveness. And as I began to forgive all of the people who offended me and institutions that harmed me the weight of despair was lifted off of me and I moved into Hope. I will touch on this more in a future article on forgiveness.

Through the five things I shared above regarding God’s instruction and my act of obedience I experienced God’s gifts of healing, mercy, grace and hope. For me getting to hope wasn’t immediate. During my times of prayer I told the Lord that 2024 was a year of consecration. The Lord responded to me that 2024 was a year of restoration. Through acts of obedience and adherence to God’s word, intentional and consistent times of prayer and worship God met me in powerful healing ways. Each and every single day I thank God for His Peace and Joy. And I pray for Wisdom. I encourage you to do the same.

How Can You Get to Hope

Pray and ask the Holy Spirit. Trust God to speak to you. Be transparent. Your prayer doesn't have to be polished. It can be messy. God isn't insulted by your mess. He wants you to come as you are and trust that He speaks and will speak to your situation and bring you to wholeness, healing, and HOPE.

With trauma, despair, and brokenness, hope can feel like an elusive, distant dream. But through God's grace and guidance, hope became a reality. It was a process that required trust, obedience, and allowing myself to be vulnerable before God and others.

It’s important to remember that healing isn’t linear. There will be moments where it feels like progress is slow or that you’re moving backward. But healing is happening in those moments, too, even if it’s not immediately visible.

If you are feeling like Humpty Dumpty, shattered and beyond repair, remember this: You are not your trauma. Your identity is not defined by what has happened to you but by who God created you to be. In His hands, what is broken can be made whole again.

As Psalm 147:3 (NIV) reminds us: “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

Let God bind up your wounds and lead you to hope, just as He led me. Your trauma does not define you—hope does.

Mindfulness: Hope

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Words of Encouragement

Beloved I hope the sharing of my testimony of moving from trauma to hope is helpful to you. And that you watch the video I made on Mindfulness: Hope and use it as a directive meditation. You are not your trauma. Hope is there for you and you can live in peace.

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1. I did have some encounters with great mental health professionals who did help me. So I encourage you, if you are in crisis and dealing with trauma please reach out to a mental health professional. Find one that is capable, caring, and can help you in a way that is meaningful and healing.