I spent much of my life, rejecting my emotions. They were weapons used against me. It was logical and I was justified to shun my emotions to protect me. I had reached Khalinar. The state of pure logic. I was cold, a machine, systematic, and completely logic. I was no longer human. In this state I was a psychopath. Not born this way and incapable of emotion, but a choice I made. A choice, to protect me.

Emotions are tools. Tools to help us determine when something around us is hurting us. Like pain sends signals to the brain that our body is under duress, emotions sends signals to our brain telling us that our mental state, our mind is under duress. But I had shut my emotions off, ignored them. It was no different than ignoring pain signals that told me my arm was being cut off. Emotions are tools, and most of us don’t know how to use them.

I never thought like this before. I said the words to my son and stopped. This was something I needed to look more into.

What is trauma? I found myself asking these questions soon after. Really? What is it? More importantly, what is awareness? It took me two days of non-stop analysis, but I think I have it. Awareness is simply the ability to identify trauma. But here is the catch, when one is traumatized, their perspective becomes distorted. I shook my head. Something else was missing, and that is when I realized. Even without the trauma, most of us don’t even know what trauma is.

So this takes me back to a basic point. We need to learn what trauma is and how to recognize it so when (everyone invariably will experience trauma), we can identify trauma in our traumatic state and seek help to resolve it.  I think this is what writing Broken has taught me. Above all else. Know what trauma is. Know what the signs are. So that when it happens you can identify the problem and seek help. Excellent! Now… What is trauma? Anybody? What do you think trauma is?