I don't want to own my trauma

Q. I keep hearing that I need to “own my trauma” — to tell my story, to honour it, to integrate it into my identity. But honestly? I don’t want to. I don’t want to “be” my trauma. I don’t want it to be the defining feature of my life.

I had a difficult childhood; both my parents were addicts. There was neglect, emotional abuse, instability. I’ve had therapy, I’ve worked hard to understand how it shaped me and I’ve definitely learnt some important things about myself. But I’m tired of circling around it, revisiting it, analysing it. Every time I try to focus on the future — new relationships, goals, dreams — I feel dragged back by this pressure to keep excavating my past.

It feels like there’s an unspoken rule now that if you’ve experienced trauma, you have to keep talking about it, living inside it, even building your identity around it. I see it everywhere — on social media, especially — this idea that to be “authentic” you have to lead with your wounds (I’m pretty sure I heard that somewhere). But what if I just want to live beyond it? Not deny it, not pretend it didn’t happen, just move forward without having to keep holding it up as a badge.

Is that wrong? Am I repressing something if I don’t want to “own” my trauma publicly or constantly? Is it healthy to just let it become a quiet part of my history rather than a loud part of my present? Morgan

A. You ask an excellent question related to what was clearly a challenging and traumatic childhood — are you repressing anything by wanting to move forward from your trauma? From what you describe, this doesn’t sound like repression or denial at all. Repression is unconscious avoidance. What you are describing is a conscious, healthy desire to stop circling the same emotional territory over and over. Your letter indicates to me that your instincts here are psychologically sound and deserve to be trusted.

We could imagine emotional healing as being like recovering from a broken bone. Yes, we need to acknowledge the break. We might need a cast, some rest, physiotherapy. But no doctor would suggest we keep wearing the cast for life to prove that we once got hurt. The goal is to regain strength and mobility, not to become a living monument to the fracture. Yet increasingly the way trauma is discussed in popular culture encourages people to stay in the emotional cast indefinitely, as though the injury itself is the most interesting or valid thing about them.

The psychoanalyst DW Winnicott (known for his work on child development and describing the “true self” — living an authentic emotional life) said that true maturity involves the ability to live creatively in the present without being trapped by the injuries of the past. You are describing precisely this instinct: the urge to live a fuller, future-facing life where trauma is part of your history, not the headline of your existence.

Healing and moving on from trauma could be viewed as like learning a new language. Trauma might be your first language, the one you were forced to learn early because of circumstances beyond your control. But via acknowledging and processing trauma, healing means becoming bilingual: yes, you can still understand the language of hurt, but you’re choosing to speak in hope, ambition, creativity, future plans.

However, as you astutely point out, there is a growing cultural narrative around trauma, one that encourages us to “own” it, narrate it and integrate it into our identity almost as a continuing project. Of course, finding language for complex and life-impacting experiences is fundamentally important, and this is a significant and positive outcome of the increased awareness and open discussion related to mental health. When I qualified more than 30 years ago, people like you would have felt silenced, left to cope alone. Today, speaking openly and seeking help no longer carries stigma and shame. Most importantly, survivors of trauma feel less alone.

I do, however, see that the opening up of this necessary conversation has also led to some unintended consequences, including the overuse and misuse of therapeutic and mental health terms. Think of the casual way mental health can be spoken about: “I’m so depressed today” (depression isn’t sadness or a one-day experience); “My OCD is really bad at the moment” (OCD is a life-impacting condition associated with anxiety and neurodivergence, not being overly neat and tidy); “I’m sure I’m ADHD — look at how distracted I get!” (ADHD is a complex neurodevelopmental condition that is associated with neurodivergence and requires careful assessment and support). The respect afforded to life-impacting physical health conditions (ie clear boundaries and no hijacking of the language) is not afforded to mental health and I am concerned by the blurring of the necessary boundaries between mental health experiences (painful and challenging incidents that leave us shocked and upset) and mental health conditions (trauma that leads to continuing mental health difficulties such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociative symptoms).

There’s a subtle social currency now in being visibly psychologically and emotionally wounded. Even a short trip around social media will show how the term “trauma” is used casually in everyday conversation and, in some spaces, has become almost a competitive event, part of the “tragedy Olympics” in which the most validated person is the one with the deepest scars. When our pain becomes the primary lens through which we view ourselves — or through which others expect us to present ourselves — we risk keeping the wound fresh rather than allowing scar tissue to form naturally over time.

Another shadow side of “owning our trauma” is that we risk over-identifying with it, turning it into a permanent badge or a defining feature of who we are. We can get caught in a psychological trap where moving forward feels almost like betrayal — of our younger self, of the pain we’ve endured, of the community of others who are still struggling. This is important because staying loyal to your trauma identity, even unconsciously, can create a kind of glass ceiling. There’s a vast psychological difference between acknowledgement (which leads to freedom) and immersion (which can result in becoming stuck).

Clinically, we know that processing trauma involves acknowledgment and active resolution, which you have already worked hard to achieve. Healthy trauma recovery means integrating our experiences into our life narrative, not letting them dominate it. Psychological resilience comes from the ability to shift narratives, not remain locked inside them. Moving on isn’t betrayal, it’s the end goal of healing: to reclaim your energy, your curiosity, your sense of possibility.

Trauma does not need to be endlessly performed or relived to prove we’ve worked through it. Real recovery is often quiet. It’s not splashy. It’s not always Instagrammable. It’s quietly getting up, doing the dishes, laughing at something silly, applying for jobs, having a cry, making friends, taking risks. It’s living without needing our pain to be the first thing people see.

In a culture that sometimes rewards public vulnerability, you may occasionally feel guilt or alienation for not wanting to centre your trauma any more. Please hear me when I say that you are allowed to choose private resilience over public performance. Your survival, your growth, your thriving — these are not things you owe the world as content. They belong to you. Moving forward isn’t betrayal. We don’t honour our past by staying trapped inside it. We are so much more than what has happened to us. I congratulate you on your courage, honesty and resilience. You have my respect and I wish you well.

Clipped from The Times —Tanya Byron I don’t want to keep constantly reliving my trauma 2025.05.05