Let's Talk About Traumaversaries & Why + How I Celebrate Mine

3: Let’s Talk About Traumaversaries & Why + How I Celebrate Mine | Healing is the Best Revenge, Episode 3 Transcript

This is a transcript of my podcast, Healing is the Best Revenge, a podcast for survivors who reject pedestals and perfection to discuss the politics of survivorship, community care, and our often-unconventional pathways towards healing. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

Karina: Hi, I’m Karina Hagelin and this is Healing is the Best Revenge, a podcast for survivors who reject pedestals and perfection to discuss the politics of survivorship, community care, and our often-unconventional pathways towards healing.

This is a very messy very DIY podcast. You may hear my cats or the construction next door or my AC running and so on and so on. I am disabled and chronically ill so I’m often recording this podcast via my voice notes from bed. So, thank you for being along with me on this journey!

If you're enjoying this podcast, please rate, review, and subscribe. Your support means the world to me and helps this podcast reach more people.

And finally, before we dive into today’s topic, I want to share the review of the day from powells914 which reads:

“Karina's zines have offered so much support when I've needed it most. Not to mention the aesthetics and art direction are out of this world! Cannot recommend their work enough!”

Thank you so much for this heartfelt review of my perzine series, which is also titled Healing is the Best Revenge, I really appreciate your support. And yeah, thank you so much; you have no ideas how much these reviews mean to me.

Today, I want to talk about traumaversaries.

Traumaversaries are the anniversary of a traumatic event or experience. Even if we don’t remember, our bodies do, they definitely do. For example, every October, my C-PTSD symptoms get SO much worse, like really bad, regardless of how well I’ve been doing, because I have a traumaversary that month.

I have over a decade between me and that event. While that wasn’t the first time I’d experienced trauma, it was when the pain became so unbearable that I couldn’t push it down anymore. This event was the catalyst to finally seek support and do some deep, deep, DEEP healing work. I want to note that while this event was what pushed me to seek help, the hard and messy and incredibly difficult work I’ve done to heal is entirely mine. And the work you’ve done to heal is yours too; remember that. Celebrate yourself for that.

I want to challenge and change the narratives available to survivors about traumaversaries. I want to celebrate our healing, our hard work, and sheer stubborn survival in a way that moves beyond the tokenizing things people say. to us about how strong, resilient, and brave we are.

Yes, I’m strong. And I’m brave. And I’m resilient to a fault, like big femme cockroach energy here, surviving out of spite vibes, nothing is gonna take me out. And/also I’m all these things because I was forced to be. Nobody should have to be that strong. You should have never had to be that strong. The transformative work I’ve done to heal and that you’ve done to heal, the life you’ve created, the life I’ve created, the lives we’ve created, the things we’ve built from our ashes like a phoenix who never should have had to burn, are entirely ours. So please, hold onto that.

So like after I had done a lot of work in trauma therapy to cope with the dissociation and flashbacks and all that jazz, my therapist challenged me to celebrate my traumaversary instead of spending it alone, feeling hopeless and just like in a really dark place. This was after like six years of working with this particular trauma therapist, mind you. It took a hot sec to get to a place where I could even consider doing this.

And/also I’m an Aries who thrives on challenges and maybe can’t turn them down, so of course, I accepted my therapists’ quest. I created a Facebook event that I invited my family and friends to and encouraged people to send me cards, to celebrate my healing process, and to come to a potluck to honor that day and what it meant together, in community & in solidarity. I have celebrated my traumaversary every year since in some way.

One of my most healing experiences was my 8th traumaversary. My supervisor at the time, Camille, who is an incredible friend and comrade, set up a community care plan for me where friends and colleagues could sign up to help me with chores, hang out with me or take lunch breaks at work, and send me care packages.

On the day of the actual trauma, I had a huge party at my apartment that was so magical, so powerful, so incredibly healing! I gave everyone who came one of my survivor affirmation zines. I set up a photobooth with an instant camera and a station with rainbow post-it notes where folks could write affirmations for me that I put inside my crisis plan. I baked a cake which was pink, of course, and I put a number 8 candle, to represent 8 years since I survived the event, and I blew the candle out on this beautiful cake that I wrote HEALING IS THE BEST REVENGE on in yellow frosting. We laughed, we cried, we held space together. It was beautiful. And after the fact, several comrades shared their own experiences of survivorship with me. And I’m so glad we could be there for each other.

The progress happens so slowly and in such a messy, non-linear way that it can be hard to notice. But these celebrations have helped me see the progress and to see MYSELF, with the love, care, & adoration my friends & family have for me. And it’s helped me start to love myself too.

So I want to encourage you to honor your traumaversary in a way that feels supportive & sustainable for you. And if you don’t remember yet, if your body is still in survival mode 24/7, I want to challenge you to celebrate yourself today. Celebrate where you are today. And let me know so I can celebrate you too; shoot me a DM on Instagram @femmesupremacy or an email at karina@karinakilljoy.com.

Before we go, if you’d like to receive notes on radical self-love and healing and affirmations and such and to stay in touch, you can find the link to subscribe to my newsletter in the show notes. I’d love to have you on the list!

So, until next time and as always, I believe you.