I heard this analogy about trauma by this peer support I talked to on the phone.

So, you have a duffel bag and a really nice suitcase with wheels. Your good memories are in the suitcase, easy to move around with lots of useful stuff in there. The bad memories/traumatic experiences are in the duffel bag, zipped up tight, really weighing you down because it's awkward to carry and heavy.

So you have to unzip the duffel bag, take out ONE THING, examine it and change the narrative and how you think about it therefore changing your emotions and behaviors in response to it (very CBT). Then SLOWLY do this with as much as you can in your duffel bag, and eventually it won't weigh you down as much.

For example: I did this recently with the memory of my gf overdosing after I broke up with her. I feel a lot less guilty about that specific event now.