What the Heck Is in This Satchel?
We inherit burdens.
Some personal.
Some familial.
Some generational.
Sometimes I imagine human suffering as a satchel filled with many different kinds of weight.
For years, we often approached mental health as though every rock inside the satchel belonged to the same category. A single diagnosis. A fixed identity. A permanent condition believed to explain the whole person.
But what if some of those burdens are trauma?
What if some are nervous system exhaustion from years of chronic stress or overstimulation?
What if some are grief, shame, fear, sensory overwhelm, emotional suppression, protective patterns formed in childhood, or environments that never truly fit us?
And what if some are also genuine neurodivergence, autism, ADHD, OCD, anxiety disorders, depression, or biological realities that deserve understanding, support, and accommodation?
Not every burden requires the same response.
Some may need trauma work.
Some may need parts work.
Some may need practical skills and support.
Some may need medication.
Some may soften through somatic healing, ACT, ERP, or simply finally feeling safe enough to exhale.
And some may involve sitting in a circle with strangers somewhere deep in the jungle, drinking plant medicine and confronting parts of ourselves we did not even know were there.
Maybe part of this comes from how naturally human beings try to categorize and simplify things.
We label.
We group.
We try to connect the dots.
We look for patterns, even when there isn’t one.
And sometimes those frameworks genuinely help.
But I also wonder how many people have spent years believing they were broken, when perhaps they were carrying layers of unresolved burdens that had never truly been understood separately.
Our understanding of mental health and healing continues to evolve.
There was a time when trauma itself was barely understood. Before somatic work, psychedelic research, parts work, attachment theory, and many of the approaches now helping people heal in deeper ways.
And it makes me wonder what else we may come to understand in the next 10 or 20 years.
Science continues to evolve. Healing continues to evolve.
What feels fixed and final today may one day be understood differently, more fully, or with far greater nuance.
I sometimes think about older generations with tenderness when I reflect on this.
People coped through addiction, overwork, shutdown, perfectionism, affairs, compulsive shopping, chronic busyness, dieting, anger, avoidance, or survival because those were often the only tools available to them.
Not because they were incapable of love or goodness, but because many people were carrying burdens they did not know how to name, regulate, process, or heal.
I think it is important to leave room for continued curiosity.
To ask:
What else might be possible here?
What if some symptoms soften when trauma is processed?
What if shame lessens when the nervous system finally feels safe?
What if some struggles are not signs of defectiveness, but signs of a nervous system carrying too much for too long?
And what if some parts of us remain exactly as they are, but become easier to live with once trauma, chronic stress, shame, or overwhelm are no longer sitting on top of them?
Maybe human beings are not as fixed as many of us once believed.
