Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
“OMG!” —insert door slamming— “You will not believe what just happened! That project I’ve been working on? Night and day for weeks?” —insert spouse or roommate or bartender rolling eyes dramatically and looking wistfully at the door— “I worked on that [bleeping] project all [bleeping] night, got it to his(or her) desk before work this morning, and when we got into the meeting with the client, guess who got all the [bleeping] credit! That [bleeper]! He/she never did [bleep], and he/she just sat there, with his/her [bleeping] smile on his/her face, taking all the [bleeping] credit for all of my [bleeping] work! It makes me want to [bleeeeep!]!!!”
Right? Awwwwwwesome.
I’ve started calling it Trauma Vomit. And I know it well. I used to be a dedicated Trauma Vomiter. And I’ve certainly spent my share of time on both sides of the situation — the Vomiter, and the Vomitee. It’s ugly, any way you look at it. But in my defense, I didn’t really know what was going on, other than that I wanted to [bleeping] [bleep] someone.
So if this sounds familiar, read on. I’ve been working on a series of steps that can take you from the ugly spiral of Trauma Vomit to a place that’s more serene, and possibly even useful.
Situation A: The Vomitee
If you’re the one being Vomited upon, try to say — as lovingly as you can manage — something along the lines of “This is just Trauma Vomit, and as much as I love you, I don’t love this,” and then hand the Vomiter a pillow or a teddy bear, or something inanimate, and ask them if they could please continue their Vomiting elsewhere. The added benefit of a pillow here is how little resentment pillows hang onto when they’re called upon to shift from being a punching bag to being a security blanket. The same can’t often be said for the rest of us. Next, and this is where knowing how to work with your energy body is extremely helpful: DTS. Dump That Shit. Don’t keep their Vomit in your system. It’s not your problem, it’s not your stress, it’s not even any of your business, no matter how much you love them. The problem, whatever it is, cannot be fixed by you hanging onto someone else’s Vomit. This is a skill you can learn, and chances are, the more extraneous energy you pick up from your environment, the easier it will be for you to learn how to DTS. It takes practice, and awareness, and if you can find one, a good teacher.
Situation B: The Vomiter
Step 1: Hear yourself.
Trauma Vomit is actually a crude but pretty effective way of getting that energetic, usually emotional but often also psychic, spiritual or even physical, trauma out of your system. The problem is, you just vomited it onto the person you love. Because think about it — the people we “vent” to are those we feel safe with. So now the safe space between you is smelly and sticky and gross with your regurgitated pain. And depending on the sensitivities of your loved one, all that ugliness is now part of your relationship, randomly pinging back and forth until someone says STOP. You’ll know you’ve hit that point when you hear them say, “I can’t do this anymore.”
So try to hear yourself when you’re Trauma Vomiting. Listen to what you just said. Hear it as if you were the person you’d been “venting” to. Notice how ugly the space between you has become in that moment and think about whether you really want THAT to be your contribution to the relationship. It was a long time before I could finally hear myself, and partly because “I have to vent!” is a culturally accepted excuse for a phenomenon that’s, energetically, pretty freaking toxic. But mostly I just didn’t know what else to do; I had to get those energies out of me. Which is where the following steps can be helpful.
Step 2: Get Real.
If you can manage this (if not, ask for help), get real about your vulnerability. Cuz this is about you feeling vulnerable, one way or another. Did it make you feel overlooked? Unloved? Anxious about the future? Fat? Skinny? Old? Stupid? What are the vulnerabilities you’re spinning on and trying not to see?
Step 3: Acknowledge those vulnerabilities & shower them with love.
Our tendency is to not allow ourselves to feel vulnerable. To shut ourselves off from those tender, squishy feelings with big, explosive ones like anger, resentment, accusations, justifications, and such. We’re taught to turn away from those feelings because we’ll “fall apart” or be seen as weak. But when you can instead turn toward that sad, vulnerable place in you, the way you would a child you care about, you’ve not only arrested the Trauma Vomit Cycle, but you've probably saved yourself a couple thousand dollars in therapy down the road. It’s the emotions we don’t allow ourselves to experience that come back to bite us in the end.
Step 4: Find the Pearl
When you’re in a place where you can see your response to the situation clearly, THEN is a good time to enlist the help and perspective of someone you love. Cuz there may be something you can do about or learn from the situation, but as long as you’re just Trauma Vomiting, you’ll never see it clearly. And really, you’re better than that.
With love,