Take Your Life Back by Stephen Arterburn & David Stoop

Author:Stephen Arterburn & David Stoop
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / Christian Life / General, RELIGION / Christian Life / Personal Growth
ISBN: 9781496418494
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2016-10-03T16:00:00+00:00

8

THE IMPACT OF TRAUMA

SOME STATEMENTS ARE obvious yet need to be said anyway, just so we don’t miss the point. Here’s an example: Trauma causes people to do things they never would have done if the trauma hadn’t happened.

Obvious, right? But we’ve chosen to highlight it here in the hopes that it will break through, soak in, and become a factor in your ongoing journey to take your life back, find God’s truth, and live accordingly.

During high school, I (Steve) made a staggering transition from being a pretty good guy who had made a few mistakes to being a very destructive person, both to myself and to others. I betrayed the people I cared for the most, and I ran away from the people who cared the most about me. I acted out compulsively and exhibited all sorts of addictive behaviors. I piled one mistake on top of another and wound up as a very messed-up young man, full of shame and with disconnected and superficial relationships. I was on a path that eventually led to an unplanned pregnancy, which I made worse by pressuring my girlfriend to have an abortion. That decision led to male postabortion syndrome, which at the time I had never heard of but which left me full of toxic shame and overwhelming regret. Through the course of all this trauma, I eventually made the decision to accept God’s forgiveness for all I had done, forgive myself, and take my life back.

For years, when I looked back at my younger days, I hung my head in regret. I was amazed that, at a time when I had so much going for me and was so blessed in so many ways, I would veer off the path of righteousness and have no desire to get back on it. I would describe myself as the worst of the worst because no one had abused me and no one had driven me to do anything wrong. In my arrogance, I had taken control of my own life—and then had driven it into the ditch. I had disregarded the counsel of others and messed up everything that was good and wonderful in my life, causing tremendous pain to some other people along the way.

Even after I came to terms with my shame and accepted God’s grace and forgiveness during a prolonged process to take my life back, it was always a mystery to me how it all could have gone downhill so quickly. At one point, it felt almost as if I had gone off to war and suffered a traumatic battlefield injury, coming home a different and damaged person; but there was no war, I wasn’t a soldier, and I had suffered no injury. But the change in my life had been that dramatic.

When attention deficit disorder (ADD) began to be explored and defined in the 1980s, I thought it might be an explanation for some of my struggles. A few years ago, I went to see Dr. Daniel Amen at the Amen Clinic in Southern California, where they had identified seven types of ADD.

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