I Am Not My Trauma Volume 7 of the I Am Salutogenesis Series By Frank Hunkler There were times I believed my trauma was all I was. That my worth ended where the pain began. That every diagnosis, label, or system response confirmed the fear I carried: I was damage. I was danger. I was done. But now I know something else. I am not my trauma. This volume is not just another reflection. It’s a reckoning. It’s where I reclaim my narrative from every system, relationship, and silence that tried to define me. This book meets me in the places most others won’t touch: • Complex trauma • Incarceration • Addiction • Reentry • Mental health misdiagnosis • Poverty • Shame • Silence But it doesn’t stop there. It walks me through what it means to live beyond the event . To name what hurt me—without letting it own me. To feel the truth in my bones—without being swallowed by it. I learn to say: • I am not what happened to me • I am not my file, my case number, or my worst day • I am not the fear they put in my body • I am not a label • I am not my trauma—I am the one who lived through it This volume explores embodiment, narrative healing, community restoration, and policy critique. It’s personal and political. Somatic and systemic. Quiet and revolutionary. It helps me build: • A new story with my own voice • A healing plan rooted in safety, not shame • A sense of identity that includes—but isn’t limited to—what I’ve survived • A connection to others who are also learning how to belong to themselves again Through somatic practices, creative expression, peer circles, and trauma-informed frameworks, I’m reminded that my healing doesn’t have to be clean or linear. It has to be real . This book teaches me: • That trauma lives in the body—but so does recovery • That silence once protected me—but now, voice can set me free • That shame isn’t mine to carry • That rest is not laziness—it’s resistance • That social justice is not separate from personal healing In a world that wants to either pity me or punish me, I choose to reclaim myself . Not through perfection. Through presence. This volume also completes the foundation of the licensed healing system I created: “I Was Born Well. Somewhere Along the Way I Got Confused.” I didn’t create this work to make trauma disappear. I created it to make me reappear. This isn’t the end. It’s a return. To the truth I always carried, even when I couldn’t say it out loud: I was born well. Somewhere along the way I got confused. But I’m not confused anymore. I’m healing. I’m remembering. I’m here. And I am not my trauma.