Trauma survivors often experience a sense of disconnectedness; I sure do. It is easy for me to connect with others on their behalf – to offer love, reassurance, compassion – but nearly impossible to speak to my own needs for community.

Of course, my early experience created a barrier. When I was a child and should have been able to trust the adults in my life, I could not. My father was consistently brutal, with occasional acts of kindness. My mother was most often loving, with random forays into drunken violence. I was confused and scared. My sense of human connection was distorted by a sense of unpredictability and distrust. I didn’t learn to trust others, and relied on a impenetrable wall of steel surrounding my soul. I could give, but could not bare my soul to others. I remained hidden.

I also remained hidden from myself. I find it hard to identify my emotions, wants and needs in one-way communication. I need feedback from others to help me out of my shell.

I can try to think to myself about who I really am, but for me, this is like thinking in a vacuum. Much of my thought process is tied to actual communication. Assigning words to inner processes is a communication step. Expressing them is another. Experiencing someone else’s reaction is yet another step. Adjusting my words to better reflect what I’m trying to state is also part of the process.

As I write I am trying to find those words for you, my reader. I’m much more invested in the process of identification when it is in the context of communication. I think this is one reason (among many) that twelve step programs include sharing with others as part of Step Five.

Step Five – Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

I find it very hard to be honest with myself about myself, by myself. I desperately need connection with others in order to more fully understand who I am and what drives me.

Which means I need community.

I need people with whom I can be open and honest about me, not just to practice love of others. I was building an intimate community in which there was truly give and take, when COVID-19 struck and social interactions changed dramatically.

Like most of us, I found ways to interact with people through the last few years. Video-conferencing, while not ideal, provided a chance to communicate with others. One of my 12-step groups held outdoor meetings in a park. I started Invincible Hope, blogging my words online.

Still, I missed the hugs, and the fully body presence of my trusted friends. I found it harder to be intimate – not in a sexual way, but with emotional connection. My newly established network became smaller and I trusted less.

COVID is not over, but slowly the world is resuming its prior forms of interactive relations, and I find myself hesitant and somewhat distrustful again. I am scared.

It’s time to tear down this brick COVID wall, much like I had to tear down that steel wall I built so many years ago. It feels scary to have lunch with my friends – not because I’m scared of getting sick, but because I’m out of practice and have reverted to my old sense of distance.

It’s easy to think that this fight is because I’m a survivor of child abuse – and in a sense, it is. My natural desire is always going to be to protect myself. But I also think that as a world, we’re all poking our heads out, wondering if it’s safe to be with one another again. COVID is a trauma the world has collectively experienced, each in our own way.

Let’s hold hands and do this together.