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Some trauma is extraordinarily painful to work through. At most it can only be dulled. It's always worth it to get to the other side. Another thing that happens is that ppl have identified with pain and don't know who they are without building their lives around their old trauma. https://twitter.com/afrosypaella/status/1307551666980478976
I get the thought of therapy can be intimidating or scary, but the actual process is pretty safe and well-managed. You don't get more screwed up from therapy, largely. You do get more screwed up from repeating and holding your trauma rather than letting what's underneath grow.
I was once in a class about how to release emotions and I remember clearly that for one man it actually worked. And he said to the teacher, "I've been worrying about this pain for 50 years and now it's gone. What do I do?" And the teacher said: "What DO you do? Live a new life."
It gets uncomfortable for people to talk about holding on to trauma as an identity, because we assume everyone wants to be released from it. But for many, what's ugly and familiar feels safer than the scary experience of choosing a new path from scratch.
This understanding -- that part of you considered your trauma to be familiar and somehow "safe" even though it was hurting you -- is what makes therapy effective. When you realize that your old trauma has nothing more to teach you. There's nothing for you there.
Therapy won't do a damn thing for you if you go into it with resistance. You have to be ready to let go of a lot of things -- and sometimes, people. It's also important to find a therapist who understands your experience (i.e., a POC or Black therapist if you are POC or Black)
Anyway the main thing is that people don't do anything against their own interests. If they're holding on to pain, they think that pain is still serving them. Nothing will convince them otherwise. That movie keeps playing in their heads. They have to get to that place themselves.
