Positive Traumatic Growth is the concept that from the worst life experience can come positive change or growth.
Examples could be something such as losing your job, and you are then forced to reinvent yourself and by doing so you start a new business and that business becomes super successful.
I have personally experienced this concept already once in my life, relating to my father’s death, and I am also currently working on using my incarceration as another way to generate positive traumatic growth from terrible circumstances. First, when my father passed it was starting to feel like the family was all drifting in different directions. My brother and I were both in Minneapolis but were living like we were hundreds of miles apart since we didn’t regularly get together. Morgan was out doing her thing in California and I only talked to her on rare occasions. Then my mom and dad were both up in Roseau and, as I previously stated, I wasn’t calling home very often.
Then out of nowhere I get that call that my dad had been airlifted to Grand Forks, and he was dead within 48 hours.
Something changed that day when my father flatlined, and I know we all felt it. I’ll never forget that day or that feeling of the four of us, standing around his bedside clenching his hands, begging him not to let go and watching him take his last breath.
But whatever it was it brought our family closer.
Morgan moved to Minneapolis soon after my father’s death and I met up with her much more often. Eventually, after my incarceration, my mom moved to Minneapolis as well, and they all live their now today, waiting for me to come home and join them.
I can’t speak for the rest of them but what changed for me that day was I realized how short life is. Of course, many of you know my life took a turn for the worse a couple of years after my father’s death, and during that time I pushed my family away, but as soon as I was ready to get help they were there ready to do whatever I needed.
So, now I am sitting here looking at my current situation and thinking of all the positive Morgan and I can get out of my incarceration.
Thinking about Positive Traumatic Growth.
And we have already started doing just that. She has given me a platform to tell my story and I have taken full advantage of the situation to hopefully help others who can benefit from it. Whether that is some young kids sitting in a classroom relating to my childhood issues, a mother or father wondering what they are going to do with their child who is spiraling out of control, or maybe someone trying to pick up the pieces of their broken life…I hope they find a use out of my words and experience.
Morgan and I are just getting started!
So if you have enjoyed our posts over the last year, don’t think for a second that they are about to be done when I am released.
Upon release, I am going to do whatever I can to help out the cause. Whether that is writing posts or a book, speaking about my life experiences even more publicly in hope that others won’t follow in my footsteps, being a role model to my daughter Melrose, being a great family member to those who have given so much to me over my lifetime, and last but not least, making my readers proud!
Thanks for listening!
Noah
