When Trauma Hands You A Sponge
What I’ve come to understand is that some wounds we carry were never ours to hold, yet God still heals them in us as if they were. Sometimes, without realizing it, we become the caretakers of pain that originated long before our own story began. It’s like being handed a sponge already soaked with the sorrows of those who were supposed to guide and protect us.
At the age of 10, I accidentally discovered that the woman I had always known as Momma wasn’t my biological mother. Learning this brought new meaning to the pain I’d endured at her hands. I was not her child, and she treated me accordingly. Years later, as an adult, I would learn the full extent of her own traumatic childhood. She carried a devastating history marked by neglect, abandonment, and survival.
As a baby, she had been left in an outhouse, wrapped in a potato sack. A neighbor rescued her, only for her to grow up with a grandmother who repeatedly reminded her that she had never been wanted. As a child, Momma absorbed every ounce of that trauma. Her spirit became a porous sponge, swelling with every drop of pain and every sip of alcohol she used to numb it.
By the time I entered her life, her sponge was already overflowing. Without choice or understanding, I became her secondary sponge, tasked with soaking up the excess of a life that had never healed. Have you ever looked back on your childhood and realized you were unknowingly absorbing the trauma of others? If so, give yourself grace as you explore how those early roles may still be shaping your emotions.
The truth is this: as children, we are often placed in roles that are not of our choosing. We serve as emotional sponges for adults who themselves were never taught how to wring out their own pain. But God, in His mercy, does not leave us there. As we grow, we gain the power to release what never belonged to us. We gain the strength to choose healing, truth, and freedom.
And when we finally wring out what was never ours to carry, we make room for the life and the peace that God intended all along.
-Victoria The Poet
