Writing by Sophie Rose // Illustrations by Mhari Grace
Writing by Sophie Rose // Illustrations by Mhari Grace
Welcome to the Millennial Trauma Club
We’re exclusive by necessity
You’ve known our members but you probably knew nothing about us
You stayed away because you hadn’t been invited yet
You were grateful not to be invited
Society reminds us to keep to ourselves
We are special and we are difficult
You will probably resent us for existing, for your having to be here with us, but we will love you unconditionally
You will scream and cry and bang your fists on our chests and tell us you hate us and we will hold you anyway
We will understand you in a way you wish everyone else could
We will be your family in that sense
We are not a fun club
We are not one you ever wanted to join
We know that
We know you didn’t want this
Want us
It’s so hard, I know, that we are one of your communities now
That we will always be one of your communities
The community of the stigmatized
Because we are young and we are traumatized
If you’re reading this it’s because you are suffering an immense loss
It’s because you feel as though your life has stopped
Or it’s because you feel as though your life is no longer yours
Or it’s because you feel that it’s a new life entirely
It’s because nothing fits anymore, nothing works anymore, nothing makes sense anymore
It’s because your heart is wailing with a ferocity you didn’t know it had
It is eating you from the inside out and it is insatiable
It is trying to find that part of you that’s missing now
It is trying to find the rose-coloured glasses you’ll never wear again
It is trying to find an out
It won’t be able to
And it will rip you apart over and over again trying to get back to Before
The second you build yourself back up it will tear you down again
You will get so tired of rebuilding and waking up will be hard and going to sleep will be hard and you will lose
people who will feel mildly badly about it but just don’t recognize you anymore and songs, foods, names, smells,
that once brought you joy may now bring you grief and your heart’s frantic, miserable hope will make it all worse
but
You are not alone
Your devastated devastating heart is not alone
All our hearts become friends in the Club
They have to
They’re the only ones who can really see each other
If you’re reading this it’s because you are a different you now
The last thing you want is to be here
To realize you won’t ever get to leave
If you’re reading this it’s because you’re one of us now
We are so sorry you are one of us
But listen: everyone else will eventually join you here
All the people who can no longer see eye to eye with you
All the people who pity you
All the people who float through life with a lightness you had yesterday a lightness you somehow can’t imagine
right now
All our friends, all our foes, at specific ages and unique stages, will experience a thing that will garner them an
invite to our prestigious group until at some point it won’t be prestigious or a group
More swiftly each year, in more numbers each year, members of our generation will trickle into the Club
It will no longer be a space that’s just ours
There will be too many of us
It will just be our collective life
It will be everyone’s normal
Does it help at all to know that you couldn’t have avoided it?
Does it help at all to know we signed a contract with pain as soon as we were born?
Does it help at all to know that all this means is that you’re one of the earlier members of a Club we have no
choice but to join?
For now there aren’t many of us
It’s our Trauma Club and it’s exclusive because we need each other and that’s what’s fair
It’s our Trauma Club and it’s exclusive because we need each other and that’s what’s not fair
I think I prefer being here on the earlier side
It has completely changed me and in some ways I think I don’t like me as much now but I am getting used to the me the Club has helped me become
I’m more raw and more cold and more angry and more anxious but
Also I’m stronger and wiser and kinder and I have integrity and conviction and I know how to fight and I I know what I believe in
And that’s a comfort
Because this is the me that I will live with forever
Being a part of this club
Meeting new me
Has helped me to understand things I couldn’t before
See things I couldn’t before
Connect with people I couldn’t before
It’s helped equip me for all of the other life events
All of the other clubs I’ll be a part of later on because
At twenty-two I learned how to go through the most terrible thing and come out okay
(I didn’t always feel like this
I wasn’t always able to see the positive
At first I tried as hard as I could to get out of here
I was so upset and so angry and so depressed that someone else put me here
And those feelings
are
normal)
I think maybe no one becomes fully themselves
Until they have been a part of the Club
Until they have had to deal with the worst life has to offer
If you’re reading this it’s because you don’t know what to do next
It’s still new for you
Those of us who have been here for a while
We are better at keeping busy outside the Club
We are better at involving ourselves in other things
But it’s never something we can predict
What our days here will be like
Some days we can’t leave the confines of the Club
We can only sit here and saturate ourselves in everything it means to exist in this space
Other days we can spend sunny sparkly hours outside and only tiptoe back here in our dreams
And then maybe the next day we’re glittery again
Or maybe we can’t leave again
We never know in advance
It’s linear as a whole
At some point we will reach a plateau
The as-healed-as-we-can-get plateau
But it’s not linear each day
Every day won’t always be better than the day before
Right now, as you’re joining
The Club may be all you can manage
It may be all you can think about
You may be too exhausted to do anything else
That’s okay
You may be numb
You may be livid
You may feel alright
You may not want to lean into it
You may want to sob
You may be confused and lost
You don’t know why you’re here
You don’t know why it’s you that’s here
You don’t know how to cope
You don’t know how to rid yourself of the hurt that feels like it’s either slowly poisoning all your insides or
rapidly stabbing all your insides or python-choking all your insides
You don’t know anything anymore
That’s okay too
I don’t have all the answers
None of us do
But we can sit in the not-knowing together
You’ve got us, okay?
We’ve got you
Welcome to the Millennial Trauma Club
We’re sorry you’re here
We’re glad to have you
