🦋 Falling Down the Rabbit Hole and Finding the Threads of Hope

Hand Embroidery by Lisa King, LPC

Like many of you, I have always been captivated by the whimsical, yet deeply resonant, journey of Alice in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece, with its shifting realities, battles for identity, and confrontations with arbitrary authority, often feels like a perfect mirror for the disorienting chaos of childhood—a chaos that is amplified when trauma is present.

Alice’s fall down the rabbit hole, her constant shifts between feeling "too big" and "too small," and her struggle to know if what she was experiencing was "real" or "fantasy" speak to the fragmented sense of self and reality many trauma survivors carry.

For those of us who grew up as Third Culture Kids (TCKs)—those who spent their developmental years outside their parents’ passport culture—this sense of an "Alice in Wonderland" childhood is particularly acute. We navigated multiple, often contradictory, social landscapes, felt intensely connected to no single place, and experienced chronic loss that frequently went unacknowledged.

And while the painful parts of this story—the trauma—yell the loudest and embed themselves the deepest in our memory, the ultimate goal of healing is not to perpetually stare into the rabbit hole. It is, eventually, to begin looking for the threads of hope that were woven into the tapestry of our unique childhoods, even if they were nearly lost in the darker weave.

The Crucial First Step: Finding Your Guide

When the trauma first yells, the priority must be safety and stabilization. This is the time to be incredibly selective about who you bring along on your journey.

If you are pursuing therapy, it is vital to find a professional who is specifically trained and has expertise in the kind of trauma you have experienced. But beyond credentials, the therapeutic relationship itself is paramount. Like Alice finding the occasional helpful, if eccentric, guide in Wonderland, you need to feel comfortable and safe to discuss the most important, painful things. Genuine connection and trust are non-negotiable foundations for this work.

This initial phase is where you learn new ways of thinking and build the essential skills and strategies to manage life’s inevitable hard things—the triggers, the relational struggles, and the moments you feel like you've fallen backward.

Redefining Your Trauma: The Gift of Your Story

However, healing cannot end with simply managing the trauma. True recovery is about reclaiming your narrative. It’s about challenging the idea that your trauma is your whole story.

For me, as a TCK, this shift involved rediscovering the immense gifts that were a direct result of my unique upbringing:

• Multicultural Connection: Growing up around friends from every corner of the world.

• A New Language: The gift of a different language, a different way to think and express.

• Global Appreciation: The sensory joys of trying new foods and traveling to new countries.

These weren't small, meaningless events; they are the threads of hope that, when pulled, reveal a profound strength. They led to a deep-seated appreciation for different cultures and a core family value—the embrace of all people, the rejection of judgment based on appearance, and the tireless pursuit of genuine connection over shallow pleasantries.

This part of the story—the re-weaving of hope—does not happen at the beginning of healing. It comes later, once the trauma has been safely contained and processed. It is about actively searching for those glimmers of light that were often overshadowed by the loudness of pain:

• The peace found alone, walking on the beach.

• The fleeting joy of a small, secret adventure.

• The feeling of being grounded while climbing a tree.

These are the memories that bring you back to your true self and help you realize that you were not entirely robbed by the things you did not ask for. They are the small, quiet anchors that balance the big, loud memories of distress.

Hope as an Anchor

Focusing on these threads of hope does not deny the trauma; it grounds your identity in something stronger than your wound. It's the moment Alice finally confronts the Queen of Hearts and declares, "You're nothing but a pack of cards!"—a powerful recognition of her own reality and strength.

Your trauma healing journey is a brave re-entry into a challenging world, not to forget the fall, but to see that your descent also prepared you with unique resilience and unparalleled gifts. It’s about building a future where your memories of joy and connection are just as, if not more, defining than your memories of pain.

Resources for the Journey

If you are a trauma survivor or a Third Culture Kid seeking to find your threads of hope, consider working with a professional who understands the unique intersection of these experiences:

• Trauma-Informed Therapy: Look for therapists trained in modalities like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), CPT (Cognitive Processing Therapy), or Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) to safely process traumatic memories (American Psychological Association).

• TCK-Specific Counseling: Seek out therapists who specialize in the unique challenges of Third Culture Kids, which often include issues of chronic, unresolved grief and identity confusion (Pollock & Van Reken, Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds).

• The Power of Narrative: Engage in practices that allow you to rewrite your story, such as journaling, art therapy, or narrative therapy, to find and amplify the positive threads of your experience (Tedeschi & Calhoun, Posttraumatic Growth).

©Lisa King, MS, LPC