The Silent Battle Through February's Facade of Romance

Valentine's Day isn't just about heart-shaped candies and rosy sentiments. For many, it's a tightrope walk over memories best left untouched, a day when the past's shadows loom large over the present. Embarking on this episode, I, Micah Bravery, bring forth a candid conversation on the lesser-told story of Valentine's Day—the one that doesn't necessarily glitter with love but rather stirs the remnants of personal trauma. We explore the bittersweet contrast of a holiday that for some, reopens old wounds, and how 'dateless Valentine's' events can offer a haven for those who find the romantic emphasis a challenge to endure.

Trauma, with its insidious ways, has the power to shape our interactions and our very sense of self—something I've learned through both personal battles and those of close friends. As I navigate the deep waters of discussing a friend's trials with singlehood, it becomes evident how vital genuine support is during times that society tells us we should feel our happiest. Taking a closer look at my own dance with cancer and its cruel encore, I share the raw emotions that come with relapse and how resilience can sometimes be more about allowing yourself to feel the lows, as much as celebrating the highs.

Concluding this journey, we touch on the resilience that comes from facing our deepest struggles head-on. From the throes of depression to the rekindling of illness, I discuss the imperative of honoring our unique paths to healing. As we near the day devoted to love, let's refocus that affection inward, granting ourselves the grace to cherish our own hearts first. So, as you navigate the rollercoaster that is Valentine's Day, remember our mantra: count the cost and make the change. Join me in transforming our pains into stepping stones for growth, as we continue to foster a community that understands and heals together.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello there, brave souls, welcome to Trauma is Expensive, with your host, micah Bravery. Here we don't just talk about trauma, we count the cost and we make the change. With every episode, we dive deep into the heart of trauma, its implications and the resilient transformations it can ignite, through conversations, insights, real stories and unflinching honesty. This podcast is here to empower every survivor to turn their pain into progress. So let's take a journey together as we understand, confront and finally heal. Welcome to wwwtraumaisexpensivecom, your platform for change. Now let's get started.

Speaker 2: 0:50

Welcome to this week's episode of Trauma is Expensive. The podcast where we talk about the tough stuff with the smile because, hey, if you're not laughing then we might just be crying and tears are a little too expensive for my taste. So I am your host, micah Bravery, and today we're diving into a topic that's complex and, as a box of chocolate is mixed the hell up, and that is trauma. And I kind of thought that this was an important topic this week, being that Valentine's Day is a few days away and you know Valentine's Day is a day of love and roses and chocolates and bears and hearts and balloons and gifts, but for a lot of people it is very triggering. Valentine's Day for some, isn't about love, it's not about chocolate, it's not about gifts. For some people it's a date that marks a loss and dealing with echoes of past trauma. So, even though February 14th is supposed to be the day of love, for some it is more like a minefield, and I think that I want to bring attention to that this holiday because it's okay I believe it is surely okay and everybody should celebrate and love is definitely something that should be celebrated but I also want us to be mindful of the people around us and just do check-ins. You know me personally. I am one of those people that are okay being single. I am going through my healing journey, so I think it's best for me to be alone while I go through this. But I do know a lot of people that aren't okay single and I've known through a lot of people who went through a lot of hard times being single, especially. They've been single for a long time and Valentine's Day has always been a triggering day for them. That's what I think is important for people to do, like dateless Valentine's events and those kind of things, because you know, like everything else, the world we put so much emphasis on everything and that is one day that if you don't have a romantic love, this world is going to make you feel bad about it.

Speaker 2: 3:00

Before we go further, I wanted to just basically talk about what trauma is. I feel like we talked this podcast. I was really, really excited about it, but I never actually discussed what trauma is. Before I go there, I just want to remind people that I am not a mental health expert. I'm not a mental health professional, but I am an advocate and someone who has been traumatized my whole life, I feel like I'm a master in trauma. So, with that said, let's talk a little bit about trauma, the beast that is known as trauma.

Speaker 2: 3:36

So trauma can be a single event or ongoing series of events that leave us feeling overwhelmed and incapable of coping. It's a deeply distressing or disturbing experience that can leave us lasting impacts, that can leave a lasting impact on our mental, physical and emotional health. Remember, trauma does not discriminate. It can affect anyone from any walk of life and it's not a one size fits all. You never know what can be traumatizing to people. Now, I say this as a person who likes to joke. Humor is my coping mechanism. So I know that sometimes I'm inappropriate when it comes to trauma, but hey, it's something I'm working on and I realize and I think for a person on the other end, if you're offended or if you are dealing with trauma and someone does offend, you simply tell that person hey, I'm offended, and go from there. A lot of times people do things out of ignorance and they don't know. So that's my little disclaimer today if someone doesn't know, then let them know, because your mental health is worth everything.

Speaker 2: 4:51

So let's look at trauma another kind of way. Imagine your mind is a vase. Trauma is what happens when that vase gets knocked off the shelf. Now, it can be a big fall or just a serious of little nudges that happen along the way. Either way, the vase is going to end up cracked and maybe even shattered.

Speaker 2: 5:14

Trauma can stem from a multitude of experiences. It can be loss, abuse and accident Just anything that deeply impacts your emotional well-being, and it can legit be anything. Let's stop minimizing what people go through. People Trauma is real. The more we learn about it, the more we learn about how we feel and what triggers us, the more we are going to heal.

Speaker 2: 5:45

Right, I just came from the Barber Shark, which is probably, as you guys may know if you've listened to past episodes, it's a really, really traumatic experience for me. I won't hash that out again because you could go back and listen to it in past episodes. However, you know it constantly makes me think of all the things that you don't know people are going through. I know that my barber does not know that he is causing a traumatic relapse, something to say. He doesn't know that he is causing me pain, and that's actually what I go through. I go through physical, emotional pain while I'm in the barber chair. So I know he doesn't know it, I know the people around him doesn't know it, but it always reminds me that I don't know what people are going through around and because of that, we just need to be better at supporting people.

Speaker 2: 6:44

So now let's get on to the Valentine's Day topic. So I know a lot of people and have known a lot of people who, over the years, have found themselves to be single on Valentine's Day, and I know the I don't know the insecurities that it brings, the drama, the stress, the why does anybody want me? Why does anybody love me? Why isn't that I can't be successful in a relationship? And those are all valid questions and something that is worth you going down and trying to figure out. However, one thing you should never feel is worthless, and I'm just going to put my little disclaimer in there If you ever get to the point where it's that bad and you think about harming yourself or harming somebody else, then make sure that you seek help. There is many places out there. The best one I could suggest is the suicide hotline 988, or you can just dial 911.

Speaker 2: 7:43

However, getting back to trauma, so I have a really good friend and, yes, I'm always going to make this personal because I can only speak on my trauma, but I know that she has been single for a few years now and she has flings and friends with benefits, but she doesn't have anybody that she's really like in love with. And Valentine's Day is coming up and we were talking the other day and you know it was one thing that she mentioned to me as well. Again, I'm not going to have a date for Valentine's Day and you can just hear so much despair in her voice and initially my reaction wanted to be hey, you need to find their love in yourself. But I didn't want to minimize what she was going through. So I just listened because I really didn't have any positive feedback. I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to have all those cliches like, oh, when it's your time, it's going to happen and there's somebody out there for everybody. Because once again, we don't know what's triggering your people, we don't know what's going to make things worse for them. So I was a very good friend I could be and I said Girl, go buy your toy. But no, really, I just listened and to try to understand you know kind of how she felt, to just to be more empathetic, just to be more human, because I don't know everything.

Speaker 2: 9:14

I am a master at healing myself, but I can't heal other people. I can just hope that they can follow in my footsteps and know that healing is worth it. So you know it's we're gonna have those kind of Traumas to think about. There are people out there who have been sexually assaulted in the past. Now they're In a relationship and Valentine's Day is approaching and we know that's the romantic holiday and of course what is gonna happen? Sex or sex is kind of expected and also know, for some people that can be triggering just the expectation to have sex when Sex has been so traumatizing in the past. So there's a lot of things to consider here. There's a lot of cost to consider and Always the biggest cost of trauma is somebody's well-being. So we have to remember that in order to survive trauma, a person has to find their way to heal it or to heal through it or to heal through the trauma. But it's for that person to find and not you to find it for him. Be a supporter, friend. As long as they're not oh my god, my brain in my brain is like Blanket tail right now. So use them in the studio with Crystal or with somebody who I could bounce ideas off of, but they kind of all abandoned me.

Speaker 2: 10:40

This weekend I've been really, really sick, because I'm gonna tell y'all how Valentine's Day triggers me, so Valentine's Day for me has never been anything romantic. I have been in relationships. I have not been in relationships. I don't mind being single, I don't mind being in love. I I just want to be happy. Okay, I do have a love now and I think that we are very happy, and you know, that's all we'll say on that and on this topic at this time. Because the Valentine's Day and brings up another triggering moment for me February 14th 2020.

Speaker 2: 11:22

I was actually Put into remission I don't even know how to properly say that correctly, but I was told that I was cancer-free and I got to go ring the bell and celebrate with the hospital and the nurses and friends and family. And this Valentine's Day was supposed to mark four years of me being in remission. And what happens? In December, I get re-diagnosed with cancer. Now Cancer is truly being a pain in my ass, because I have been dealing with cancer since 2008, so it's at like 16 years now, but it came back and it's. It's not as serious as it was. I'm gonna be okay. I am doing treatment.

Speaker 2: 12:09

It is a pain in my ass and, yes, I went through See all of January and now into the middle of February in a deep, dark state of depression and hopelessness and tiredness and just Wanted to give up and felt like what is the purpose of anything? Then you go through that Down the hill. I must truly be a bad person, because this stuff only happens to bad people. Or I think is a punishment for every bad thing I've done in my life. Or I think is a punishment for being gay, because of course, I've been told that my whole life. So it kind of brought up a lot of traumas for me and it knocked me the fuck down. Do you hear me? So I think every episode that we had planned to record for these fucking feelings podcast has been rescheduled. We're still carrying on with season three, don't worry. We still gonna have a new episode every week and I'm getting back to recording this week.

Speaker 2: 13:12

But I just can do it. I had, I knew that I needed to allow myself the time to mourn and in that morning came A deep depression and anxiety and many sleepless nights. But I'm not a robot, I'm human and I know that I have to heal through these things. I know that I have to find my method and my method is different from everybody else's. You know, I allow myself to feel the pain of what I'm going through. I I want to understand why it hurts, I want to understand why I'm going through it. I want to Understand the feeling and the emotions and what I feel about myself. And you know I like to, you know, figure out how I'm gonna beat this fight or how I'm gonna fight this event and what is my next step. And of course, the solution comes down to that. I'm just gonna live and I'm going to get back to as Much as a normal pace of life as possible, because I can't be defeated by cancer. I wasn't defeated by before and I won't be defeated by it now.

Speaker 2: 14:20

But I allowed myself to go through those moments of Falling into my trauma. You know, and maybe for a lot of people they're going to say that's bad and, like I said, everybody has their own coping mechanism, but mine is just to get lost in the struggle because I need to learn to love it, and that's the thing about me with Valentine's Day. You know, I know how strong love is and I know that when you love something, that you can truly destroy it. That is the most unique love in the world. So I learn to love what I go through, but I learned to love it so I can destroy it, because it is only through that love that I'm able to get rid of this cancer. So you know it's like we spend so much time hating things and how does that work for us? You know we go through anger and frustration and more anger and madness, and you want to fight and violence and all of these things. But when you do deal with sorry, my brain is moving faster than my mouth.

Speaker 2: 15:32

Because this is a very, I guess, passionate time for me, because I'm just coming out of my depression, I'm just coming out of my anxiety and just my struggle where I didn't want to do anything, belaying, bad, and I was sick and vomiting and all those things, and then I realized like I can't let this be me, so we need to fight. And when I think about what the trauma of being read diagnosed has cost me, it cost me several good interviews with several million people in January that I had to cancel on because I just I just couldn't do it, and some of them rescheduled and some of them didn't, and now I feel like the audience is going to miss out because it was going to be some incredible, incredible things. But hey, it's okay, because I still had to get through my moments. And now I'm here and I'm ready to fight, I'm ready to get my life back, I'm ready to take cancer and fuck it up some kind of way, right, I don't know what the method is going to be. I'm going to listen to the doctors, I'm going to listen to my spirit, I'm going to listen to my soul and I know that I'm going to heal from this because I have to, because I must, and I will do it. And I guess that's my message for all of you guys Learn that it's okay to have your bad days, learn that it's okay to mourn, it's okay to suffer, it's okay to be frustrated, it's okay to check out and have those mental health breakdowns.

Speaker 2: 17:10

I feel like life is a series of those breakdowns, you know, as we're going to be broken and we're going to be shattered and we're going to be crumbled. For some reason, we don't live in a perfect world. I don't understand why Once again, that's a conversation for another episode but I do know that it happens. You know, one minute you're up and the next you're down, and then is those down moments that you feel like you can't survive in this world. But think of everything that that is costing you, think of everything that you are losing because of your suffering and your pain, and decide to fight against it and to gain everything.

Speaker 2: 17:59

I mean, I kind of was drastic in the way I decided I needed to rethink and relive my life and I packed up everything I can and a little Nissan Altima and I drove and until I got tired of driving. This is where I now live and to me it has been the best thing for me. It allowed me to finally be alone enough to realize that I had issues I needed to overcome. And you know, in my life it was always been a series of events and it wasn't a series of the same events. There were different situations that happened that traumatized me so much that I realized I was petrified to live life because I was always expecting a trauma to happen. So, and even now to this day, I go through a lot of guilt because I have been pretty successful lately and there are a lot of people in this world who are having a hard time in life and I just want everybody to be the same. Right, that is the dream to live in a world where everybody could be the same. So I go through guilt because of that. So, trust, I have a lot of healing and a lot of stuff to overcome.

Speaker 2: 19:13

But, like I told you in the beginning, I'm not a profession but this, but I am an advocate. So, as an advocate, I'm just going to tell you to be mindful of yourself. Be mindful of all of your fucking feelings, everything that you feel is important. Be mindful of that. Be mindful of the traumas that you have. Think about the things that you don't know is trauma, but it's trauma.

Speaker 2: 19:38

You know, I always go back to that show, candy, and I talk about it all the time because, when it comes down to the, it is based off a real life story and I don't know if real life is kind of like the show, but it was a shish, somebody sh-ed her and she basically killed a woman and axed her up like 40 times. But it was this sh that was triggering because of the time that her mom had shished her. It sounds pretty ridiculous, right. Impossible. Ain't nobody shishing you gonna make you trigger out? Right, because that's what we think as a society. But it's not true, it's not factual. I mean, anything can trigger you. You know we're learning that a baby sitting in his diaper too long can be triggering or can cause trauma, sorry, but, and with that trauma can come OCD and a whole line of other issues. So moral of the story trauma is real. It's gonna be real this Valentine's Day.

Speaker 2: 20:44

Don't feel obligated to do anything outside of what you can do. Love the people that you can love the way that you can love them. There's no need to go over the top. Let's not do things on Valentine's Day that's gonna stress you out the rest of the week. Don't spend money that you don't have. Don't feel like you have to have all of these over the top gestures. Remember everything that you do today will cost you tomorrow.

Speaker 2: 21:12

Now, is it a good cost? Is it an investment? You know, because I guess we can spend it, we can invest, right? That's what it comes down to. We spend money, we invest money. Well, the same thing comes with our healing. We can invest our healing into something great, or we can spend time not healing. You know what? I guess I said that wrong, but we can invest our time in healing or we can spend time not healing, because when you don't heal and you don't recognize that, hey, everybody has mental health issues.

Speaker 2: 21:46

Moral of the story we all got them some kind of way. You have to learn to deal with them because if you don't, it's gonna cause you a full life of pain. But, that said, it's still okay to be human. You are perfect in all of your struggles and healing is incredible. You guys will understand I have been through the highs and lows of life, anything you can think a person could go through. I probably have been through. I haven't always been the biggest person, I ain't always the bad guy, but I've always been a consequence and it's either a negative consequence or a positive consequence.

Speaker 2: 22:38

But the moral of the story I am rambling now and that's just because I think I got off track, but I was just thinking about like, okay, we need episode of trauma is expensive. This week I'm still dealing with the shock of cancer. I am doing a lot better. My mentor is better. I am gonna do all of my episodes of these fucking feelings podcast. This week I'm gonna do my new recordings. We're gonna get new episodes out to you guys. I'm gonna continue working on this podcast right here. Trauma is so expensive and we need to know what is costing us.

Speaker 2: 23:15

Unresolved trauma is deep, so with that, let's just go into learning how to navigate the day, knowing what it could bring, what it could symbolize, how, for some people, it can bring the most unique kind of trauma to the forefront. It's a reminder of battle spot, the fragility of health and the strength it takes to face down those demons. All while everyone else is swapping love letters okay, but here's the kicker. And facing this, we're also reminded of our resilience and our capabilities to love ourselves through the mess, and it's important to cherish every single moment of your life. So I am gonna sit here and give you the most cornyest joke. Did you hear about the chocolate box that went to therapy? It had too many truffles. Ha ha, get it. Truffles, truffles. No, wasn't funny. Well, all right, I'm gonna see myself out on a serious note.

Speaker 2: 24:27

So all my fellow travelers on this healing journey, remember this Valentine's Day that your worth isn't defined by disease, a past trauma or even being part of a couple, being single, being mad, being angry. It's not defined by any of that. It's defined by the incredible resilience and courage you're gonna show every day just by being you and trying to be the best you that you can be always. Thank you so much for tuning into. Trauma is Expensive, where we count the costs and make the change. Remember, healing is a journey, not a destination, and sometimes that journey involves laughing at bad jokes, like the one I had, crying over good memories and learning to love ourselves through it all and to next time keep healing, keep laughing and keep moving forward. We will see you next week. To all the lovers out there, I hope you guys have a great Valentine's Day. You know you can send me some chocolate. I'm about the chocolate, so uh, well, matter of fact, don't buy any right so that I can go to the stores and get it when it's 75% off. Peace, love and blessings.

Speaker 1: 25:41

And that brings us to the end of yet another insightful episode of Trauma is Expensive. I'm signing off on behalf of your host, micah Bravery, reminding all you brave souls to continue counting the cost and making the change. Don't forget to visit wwwtraumatisexpensivecom, a dynamic space for understanding, healing and transformation, where we fuel the journey to turn pain into progress. Until we meet again, stay resilient, stay empowered and remember the mantra count the cost and make the change. Thank you for being part of the conversation. We bid you farewell. Until next time.