Have you felt for so long that to maintain your substance use disorder you had to wear a mask? Were you completely disconnected from who you really are? Substance use disorder often requires us to wear many different masks to hide our pain, suffering, and shame providing a false sense of safety. But the truth is, wearing these masks that hide your true self leads to the most dangerous game of all, self-betrayal. We lose ourselves and commit the ultimate self betrayal to continue our commitment to the one thing that makes us feel whole, if even for a short time, no matter the consequences. When we add the fact that many walking the path of active use have also experienced trauma, we know that the sense of self and trust in oneself was lost long ago to survive an environment full of pain and fear. Many were taught very early on to abandon their truest emotions in order to survive.
Dr. Gabor Mate recently released the film The Wisdom of Trauma. In the movie, he discusses the two most important survival traits of an infant: having a secure attachment and authenticity. The only way the infant can attach is physically. When the baby is left to cry they experience the trauma of abandonment, fundamentally rewiring the brain to feel alone and not enough. The parents who are themselves so foreign to their own gut feelings and authenticity let their babies cry because they are triggered by their own childhood wounds of not feeling enough and not being able to sit with their emotions. If the very first experiences of our lives are feelings of abandonment and an insecure attachment in an unstable environment, how do we start to find our true selves and release the generational trauma cycling through our families? All of which often leads to anxiety, depression, and substance use disorder.
Authenticity is the connection to ourselves. Without our gut feelings and intuition we drastically decrease our chances for survival on a primal level. Think back to times as a child when you felt angry? How were you told to cope with that anger? Were you punished for your emotions or even ostracized from the group, further decreasing your ability to get your need for attachment met? We are taught early to disconnect from ourselves and our true emotions to survive when the opposite is true.
Through recovery and healing, we can become friends with our anger. It’s a beacon telling us loudly what we need to find our ways back to our authentic self after years of survival and self betrayal.
Being true to yourself is the greatest gift you can give yourself and your loved ones. Taking off the mask can feel scary, vulnerable, and uncomfortable but can lead to authentic connection with the people, places, and habits that bring you true joy. What an incredible gift we can give to our ancestors and future generations to start to heal generational trauma and find a way back to ourselves.
