Waterfalls, Cleansing and Being Animalistic Story #26

 

What Trina Taught Me About

Trauma, Crisis & Healing Ourselves

(Story Two of My Street Friend Series)

by Bill Pautler December 30, 2024 

 

I have a beautiful BMW 1200GS motorcycle.   I love the versatility of that bike.   You can ride it down an old dirt road, across a field, take it to Alaska or just piddle in town.   I was feeling full of myself one day after a good ride and decided to leave my bike parked on the sidewalk in front of the 1930’s 20 story apartment complex I live in.

My bike has a center stand and once that bike is on its center stand it is very stable, almost impossible to knock over.     As I walked out the front doors of our complex a few days later, there is a 40ish black butchy 5’ 5” woman admiring my bike.  I said, “Do you like that bike?”.  She was like,  “Ya, I love that bike, its fly.”  I said, “That’s my bike, would you like to sit on it?” and that is how our relationship started.    Trina had never sat or ridden on a motorcycle before, so I showed her how to mount and dismount the bike properly.  She was hesitant to get on, but with some cajoling and assurances she climbed on.   After sitting on it she started smiling and then I had her stand up to get the feel of how it is to ride standing up and her smile got even bigger.

I helped her off and then we started talking.   I really don’t even remember what we talked about, but what I do remember was I was touched by the beauty of her heart.  By the time our talk ended, I was crying, and we were hugging!  We exchanged numbers and our relationship officially started.

Over the course of the next couple weeks, Trina came up to my apartment a number of times.   We had some deep talks about life.   Trina was sexually abused/raped by her father from the age of eight till eleven.  He stopped raping her when she pulled a knife on him and told him if he ever touched her again, she would slit his throat.   He never did touch her again, but coming from a poor black family in the South, the difficulty of her life from then on was set in stone.   And just so you know Trina has given me permission to write about her and I confirmed that permission this morning, as I texted her in the drug rehabilitation facility she has been in for the last 30 days.

Trina, has been a gang member, she has gang tattoo’s, she has a cocaine addiction, she was in prison for 10 years and she stays on the edge of homelessness.     On the bright side, she has that beautiful big heart, she is smart as a whip in the ways of the world and she can sing like a bird, anything from gospel hymns to rap.  She has performed in public on occasion, she has a Facebook following and her stage name is JODIESTUDTASTIC.   Her sexual preference leans towards women, hence the stage name.    

The one stable person in her life is Sonya.  Sonya is a beautiful woman, who owns her own tailoring shop downtown, just a few blocks away from me.  Sonya has mothered Trina, employed her and loved on her for over 15 years.

Sonya and I have also begun to develop a friendship because of Trina.   There are always so many blessings in the least expected places.  Trina considers Sonya her mother and she calls me her brother from another mother.

Over the last 5 months, Trina has reached out to me multiple times for help.   Sometimes for transportation and also for money to buy life necessities like food and feminine products.   I love to cook in big batches, and I try to spoil her with homemade food, not something she gets a lot of.

Trina has heart issues that have been exacerbated by her cocaine use.  She was in the hospital a few months ago and called me.  She asked if I could come down to the clinic and pay $7 for her prescription.   I am like, “Sure”, and then she tells me I need to come right now!   I ask her, “Right now?”   She has a long explanation, but she is empathetic that she needs it right now.   Well at a minimum, if I completely stop what I am doing, I am 45 minutes away.   And Trina’s idea of now, is now, right this very minute.   

I ended up helping her, just not on the exact time frame she desired, and we got through that ‘crisis’.

After she was released from the hospital, she was sent to a halfway house.   It was small, dilapidated and in a rough area of town.   As I knocked on the door, I looked down and read the door mat. 

It said BYOTP, Bring Your Own Toilet Paper.   And, in all reality, that doormat really summed up the experience you would receive at this halfway house!

The house was dark and confining inside.  Trina had her own bedroom but everything else is shared.  Living room, kitchen, refrigerator and bathroom.  And the other people staying in the house are using and have their own issues.  There is no real solitude or safety.  Maybe physical safety and shelter, but no mental safety.   The energy level of the house is very low.  

After the first day she called me and implored me to come put a lock on her bedroom door, so her things didn’t get stolen.   Not that she really has anything.    And of course it had to happen now!  I could tell you the elongated story of our trip to the hardware store on Sunday morning of Thanksgiving weekend, but the short story is I put a lock on her door.  

Here is what is important!

I learned that people that have lived in and with trauma move into ‘crisis mode’ quickly.    In fact, many of them live in a continuous state of crisis.  There is no safety net.  Because their emotional and physical needs weren’t met, they cry loudly and quickly for help.   It’s the only way they can get attention.  

They are constantly faced with, where am I going to sleep if my girlfriend kicks me out of the house?  Where is my next meal?   How am I going to keep myself safe tonight?   How can I stay clean enough, fed enough and sheltered enough just to hold down a menial routine mind numbing job?

I have seen up close how the systems we as a society have put in place to help people like Trina.  The halfway houses, the hospitals, the rehabilitation centers and the law enforcement/jail systems.   And quite frankly, these systems are not perfect, but they do a pretty good job.

*****

But what Trina has taught me and made so clear to me is that embedded trauma creates in people a continuous state of crisis!!!

It is so very, very, very sad.

And once this trauma is embedded, the healing only happens over a lifetime of intentional work.  

The only way out of this mess for all of us, is to begin to heal ourselves.   And each of us has things we need to heal in ourselves.    Ways in which we don’t love ourselves and anytime we can’t love ourselves fully, we unknowingly inflict that pain on others.

I think I read in the Bible somewhere that the iniquities of the father are passed down to their children for three and four generations.

That passage doesn’t mean that the father passes down some type of esoteric sin that has to be cleansed in the confessional.   It means that every time our behavior is lacking wholeness, we spread a septic energy to our family, our friends and all of society.   That one ugly word or behavior ripples through the All.    And we generationally feed societal unwholesomeness, like Trina’s dad did to her and was probably done to him or at least exampled to him.

Wholesomeness is Holiness.   

Our every movement either creates Wholesomeness or Unholiness.    Unholiness destroys beauty.

We are created in beauty and holiness.    Let’s continue to dig down and be aware of our sacred and inherent holiness.    The great Divine is Whole, is Holy and that is what we are created out of.   We just have to continue to remind ourselves of our inherent Wholiness.

Stop now!  Pray for Trina.  Pray for us.   We are all one and the same.

 You can purchase my book here: https://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Ourselves-Practical-Building-Spiritually/dp/B0CN3K6GMY