Trauma as Riddle: A Narrative Approach to Healing from the Literacy of Life (LOL) Framework

Trauma as Riddle: A Narrative Approach to Healing from the Literacy of Life (LOL) Framework

Introduction

In most contemporary models, trauma is treated as a wound—an injury to the psyche or nervous system that must be soothed, managed, or desensitized. While this medicalized framing has led to powerful therapeutic techniques—such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure therapy—it can also be limiting. What if trauma is not merely a dysfunction but a disruption to a personal narrative—a corrupted novelty event that demands not only healing but authorship? The Literacy of Life (LOL) framework introduces an innovative reframe: trauma is a riddle, a cognitive and spiritual puzzle that, once solved, reintegrates into the plot of one's life. Rather than being something to forget, it becomes a side quest waiting to be completed.

Section 1: The Riddle of Trauma

In the LOL model, trauma is not seen as a purely emotional disturbance but as an unresolved narrative disruption. When something painful happens and the mind cannot integrate it into the current life story, it becomes a "corrupted novelty event"—an experience too intense, confusing, or paradoxical to process in real time. This leaves the mind looping through attempts to resolve it, often triggering distress each time the unresolved event is revisited.

Rather than viewing this looping as pathology, LOL interprets it as the mind’s continued effort to solve a riddle. The distress is not proof of disorder—it is evidence that the question remains unanswered. In this model, the goal is not desensitization but reintegration. Once the riddle is solved, the loop ends naturally.

Section 2: Trauma Contagion

Trauma doesn’t exist in isolation. The LOL framework posits that trauma can become contagious—not just through empathy or shared experience, but through identity schema disruption. When a person deeply identifies with their trauma and brings that unresolved logic into relationships, it can alter how others view themselves and behave. This is not just mimicry; it’s a transfer of narrative distortion.

Examples include:

• Generational trauma —for instance, a parent who endured abandonment in childhood may unconsciously project that fear into their parenting style, creating anxious attachment in their children who now interpret the world through a lens of potential loss

• Workplace trauma where unresolved control-based dynamics warp team behavior

• Romantic relationships where past betrayal scripts become projected expectations

• Cultural trauma, where shared historical pain forms the basis of group identity

In each case, the trauma loop becomes a shared riddle—one that entire systems can become caught in.

Section 3: Narrative Restoration as Healing

Healing, in this model, is not a return to the past, but a restoration of narrative continuity through conscious authorship—choosing how to weave the once-disruptive experience back into the evolving story of one’s life. It’s a creative act—resolving the riddle and weaving the experience into a larger plot. In gaming terms, this is completing the side quest. Until the lesson is learned and integrated, it remains an open thread that distracts from the main storyline.

This reframe allows for compassion toward self and others. It also encourages curiosity—what is this pain trying to teach? What lesson or character development is incomplete?

LOL techniques focus on:

• Rewriting past events through reflective authorship

• Developing metaphorical or symbolic resolutions

• Treating emotional pain as narrative material, not as an error

Section 4: Cultural Echoes of Collective Trauma

If individuals carry unresolved loops, so can cultures. Some traditions, philosophies, or shared belief systems may be the evolutionary result of trauma loops scaled across generations. These can manifest as:

• Reverence for ancestry in response to historical dislocation

• Communal rituals for release and identity repair

• Philosophies built around suffering, justice, or rebirth

Cultures that experience collective trauma often develop complex, sophisticated systems to resolve it—storytelling, music, and spiritual frameworks.

However, when a culture is derived from a common series of trauma bonding and vicarious spread, it may begin to endear the values of creating war, developing a superstition that conflicts with group needs. Yet this is often a manifestation of unresolved group trauma repeating itself in contemporary times, perpetuating harm both internally and externally.

These aren’t just expressions of suffering; they are strategies of narrative reparation. However, some individuals or groups may fear the resolution of trauma because it threatens to dissolve the cultural frameworks that have long provided meaning and identity. This can lead to a sense of existential dread and a compulsion to recreate the original trauma, reinforcing the very dynamics that formed their in-group bonds.

In contrast, Pejoalo culture provides a model of cultural development not based on trauma but built systematically to meet group needs and support collective flourishing in harmony with all life around it. Cultural sensitivity includes understanding the history of trauma various groups have experienced and recognizing that their culture may be a response—adaptive or even maladaptive—that they associate with the fulfillment of group needs.

For example, in post-apartheid South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission served as both a national catharsis and a narrative tool—transforming collective trauma into a process of storytelling, acknowledgment, and attempted healing that wove a new national identity from a fractured past served as both a national catharsis and a narrative tool—transforming collective trauma into a storytelling, acknowledgment, and attempted healing process that wove a new national identity from a fractured past.

Section 5: Broader Applications

The LOL framework opens the door to applying trauma re-narration techniques across fields:

• Education: Students stuck in loops of confusion may benefit from narrative metaphors that restore continuity and self-belief.

• Organizational Psychology: Institutions trapped in dysfunction cycles may carry unresolved loops from scandal, failure, or outdated identity frameworks.

• Social Movements: Activism born of historical trauma may find renewed direction by resolving loops rather than endlessly replaying injury scripts.

Conclusion

The Literacy of Life framework invites us to view trauma not as a failure but as an open chapter—an unsolved riddle that contains the seeds of transformation. By shifting from pathologizing pain to resolving and integrating it, we open the door to personal authorship, relational repair, and cultural renewal. Trauma, once feared, becomes a vital side quest in the great game of becoming whole.

This idea also echoes through cultural evolution: societies, like individuals, must choose whether to relive the trauma or resolve the riddle. Healing requires remembering and re-authoring—and choosing love over the loop—an unsolved riddle containing the seeds of transformation. By shifting from pathologizing pain to resolving and integrating it, we open the door to personal authorship, relational repair, and cultural renewal. Trauma, once feared, becomes a vital side quest in the great game of becoming whole.

Rather than asking, “How do I get rid of this pain?” LOL asks, “What is this pain trying to say—and what kind of author will I become when I finally complete this side quest and write its ending into my story?”