When Talking About Past Hurts Causes Emotional Re-injury

Has this happened to you? You run into someone, and they ask about something that you shared with them that was painful. They start talking about it, and there you go, hurting again? You weren’t thinking about it, and the next thing you know, it hurts like it just happened. There are occasions — holidays and family gatherings — where the effects of a past painful experience will reemerge and trigger emotional pain all over again. Sometimes, just being in the unwanted presence of someone who caused you pain in the past, perhaps a family member or an ex, is enough to trigger that painful emotional memory and residual emotional pain. People often say, "Talk about it, you'll feel better," but that is definitely not always the case. If that isn’t bad enough, sometimes just talking about a painful experience, reliving it in your mind, can feel like you’re hurt all over again and actually re-injured.

There are times when we ruminate or dwell on the past — about hurtful things people have said or done to us — and, in doing so, we relive the pain. We think about what we should have said, wanted to say, or what we did say that could have been better. Thinking about, ruminating, or talking about a painful experience can be a form of processing, and oftentimes is part of the process of desensitizing. Nonetheless, for others, it is instead re-injuring. Everyone has their own manner of processing hurt, but for some, talking about and revisiting past painful experiences and trauma isn’t always indicated, nor helpful.

In the wake of 9/11 all those years ago, I attended a training for trauma work with victims. 9/11 had just happened, and the focus was on helping mitigate the effects of the trauma long-term. What remained in my mind was that desensitization, by having the person recount the event in detail, was not always the way to go. If anything, for some people, it was re-traumatizing and actually harmful. It seems like an obvious conclusion, but at the time, countless therapy hours were spent helping people recount the trauma in the safe environment of a therapy office. In fact, the APA includes in the effective treatments for trauma, prolonged exposure: recounting, processing, and facing what had otherwise been avoided regarding the trauma.

But my own experience as a therapist has taught me that it was never a one-size-fits-all treatment, and going over the traumatic or painful event again and again could sometimes cause more harm than good and actually delay healing. The important point is that you have to assess for yourself whether talking about something that hurt you helps you or makes you feel worse. Here are some key points to help you recognize if you are being re-injured when you talk about a past hurt.

1. Do you find yourself getting really upset after talking about something you thought you were okay about? Maybe talking about it isn’t the best thing to do.
2. Do you find yourself feeling agitated, sad, or depressed after being exposed to a subject that has caused you undue upset in the past? Sometimes, distracting yourself or affirming how far you’ve progressed are better options.
3. Do you find yourself needing considerable time to recover from talking about something that caused you emotional pain in the past? That might be a clear sign that you are being re-injured.

Are we ever truly over something that caused emotional pain? Emotional healing is certainly possible and palpable; it comes in the form of simply not hurting as much as we did in the past. Remind yourself of your own resilience and ability to heal from all kinds of hurts. True healing does not deny that something caused you considerable pain, but rather that, in spite of it, you are able to move on.

There are times, certainly, when you might be in denial about a past emotional injury, and the refusal to think about or talk about a traumatic or painful event is, in fact, an expression of that denial. Denial is a defense mechanism and perhaps best addressed in the safety of a therapeutic environment. But being ready (or not ready) to address emotional pain is still up to you, and what feels right to you matters the most.