One thing that you may not know about me is that I love skincare. This is something I realized during the pandemic when we were all alone. It started with me looking for a new face wash, and then being influenced by TikTok to start having a skincare routine. I did some research on Black-owned brands and saw great reviews about a company called Good Molecules. (While this is not a sponsored blog, if somehow in the universe they see this I am down to be a brand ambassador because I love them).
Doing my skincare has become my favorite part of my day because I can sit and think about different topics, and the steps of my skincare routine are just simple enough to not distract me. I was recently doing my skincare routine and I started thinking about trauma. I don’t know why this was on my mind, but it probably had something to do with the episode of Law and Order SVU I had just watched. I reflected on a quote I had heard about how trauma can give us thick skin; and that going through certain things can toughen us up. This is something I certainly understand, as I have experienced things that have made me stronger and have given me different perspectives. As I thought about that quote, I immediately said to myself that yes, some trauma does give you thick skin. But I also believe that some types of trauma changes your skin.
Let me give you an example. There are clear physical differences between a burn scar and having third-degree burns on your skin. When I was 13-14, my dad was frying some chicken one night and he told me to back up from the grease, and when I didn’t, some of the grease popped on my wrist and I had a small burn mark for years. You could see the mark, but my actual skin was not damaged, and it eventually healed. But if you’ve ever seen pictures and/or videos of someone who has had third-degree burns, it is devastating. In those cases, they often have to get multiple rounds of surgery, and even after surgery their skin can remain permanently disfigured. Two people can survive a housefire, but there may be only one burn victim.
I believe that everyone has experienced some sort of trauma in their lives and that it all matters. Not all traumatic experiences involve abuse and/or violence. For some, a specific rejection can be traumatic. For others, the unexpected loss of a job. And let’s not forget the emotional equalizer of grief-we all have experienced the trauma of losing a loved one. Although we all know what trauma is, our experiences are individual and should not be compared with anyone else’s. How we respond to our trauma is also individual, and not everyone comes out of their trauma whole. Some people have experienced so much trauma in their lives that it’s a miracle they are still here and in their right mind.
I am a big believer in causation. I believe that almost every decision that we make, especially the patterns in our lives, has a root cause and often includes some type of trauma. It is a privilege to be able to safely process the trauma in our lives, and how it impacts us and our decisions. I am working through some of my past trauma in therapy, and I do not take that for granted. However many people cannot afford therapy or do not have access to a therapist that they can relate to in their area. Many people cannot escape from their trauma because they are still connected to the very people who traumatized them (family, loved ones, etc).
One of the things that I will say over and over again until my last day is that you don’t know how something will affect you until it happens to you. There are a lot of people who are not the same person they used to be because their trauma changed them. They went through something and they came out different. Deep down they know it, and instead of trying to heal they’ve decided to embrace their new skin, as a means to gain some type of control. I have compassion for those people.
I wonder about some of these podcast bros whose whole personality is about disrespecting black women. I wonder how many of them were at one time very nice men who had a woman that they loved to death and would have done anything for, and that woman broke their heart, and now their skin is different. Now they don’t see us black women as being worthy of respect anymore.
I wonder about the many black women who are called bitter and jaded because of their ‘’men ain’t sh*t” narrative. Or the women whose achievements have become their personality, so they talk down to men and emasculate them at every turn. I wonder if those women were once hopeless romantics who played Barbara the builder for so many men and gave of themselves time and time again, only to be hurt, repeatedly. Now their skin is different, and they are hard-hearted as a means of self-protection.
I especially think about all of the people in the Christian church (especially my fellow millennial church kids) who were made to feel like their trauma didn’t matter, or who were surrounded by the improper teachings of purity culture and who endured sex shaming, misogyny, and hypocrisy. As much as these people loved God, the judgment and treatment that they received from others changed their skin. And they haven’t returned to the church since.
God knows the real us, He sees what is underneath all of our trauma. And I am choosing to believe that He is powerful enough to give you your old skin back.
See yall next week~
The Obedience Diaries 