Wounds

By Mark Ackerman, PA

 

“A wound that goes unacknowledged and unwept is a wound that can not heal.”- John Eldridge.

There are times that we all need to sit back and take an inventory of our wounds. Not all of these are active at any given moment. Some are in the past and some have actually made us stronger. Some wounds get recurrently infected and continue to bother us. The following is simply an inventory to reflect on so we can acknowledge them.

Traumatic Wounds– “It’s not the speed that kills you, it’s the sudden stop”- various comedians.

The most common wounds are from minor trauma- wounds from scrapes, cuts and minor burns that can turn into ulcers and abscesses. These are things we sustain in everyday life but can become significantly infected and eventually lead to deeper infections that require surgery. Most of these are just a part of life and resolve on their own, but in the environment of underlying diseases, they can become more significant.

Another category of wounds are those from severe physical trauma. The most common wounds are probably blunt trauma wounds. These create head injuries, spine injuries, chest and abdominal wounds and are mostly from sudden decelerations. Think of car crashes and falls. These are the wounds that account for a large percentage of disability in life- things that we may never get completely over.

Less common are penetrating wounds; knife and gunshot wounds that lead to death or disability. These are most common in people who either live a certain lifestyle that lends itself to those risks, or people whose job puts them in harm’s way of those things.

Psychological Wounds– “It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”-Lou Holtz.

Psychological wounds are usually those that other people typically give us and only become complete when we accept them. We buy into them and adopt them because we hear them so often that we start to believe that they are true. The most common of these wounds are abandonment, rejection, fear, guilt, shame, powerlessness, hopelessness and confusion. These things can paralyze us for years until we figure out that they are usually lies. While we may not ultimately be responsible for these wounds, we are responsible for how we react to them.

 

Self- Wounds– Man is the only kind of varmint that sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.”- John Steinbeck.

For some reason we have a propensity to wound ourselves. If not from daily scrapes and cuts or from car accidents and falls, we wound ourselves with our habits. The habit of “too muchness” such as smoking, drinking, drugs, sugar, etc. These are the wounds that we think are fulfilling our lives at one time but then later in life find out that they have brought on significant morbidity and mortality later on.

I only bring these up to ask that basic question, what wounds do you have, what does your inventory look like, and what can be done about them? Acknowledgement is the first step in healing.