Scenic vistas attract filmmakers, but steep tax incentives also drive away some out-of-state productions.

With its scenic vistas, Colorado has been a destination for filmmakers since the earliest days of cinema. Through the 20th century and beyond, the state has played a part in films of all sizes, from Hollywood blockbusters to independent films.

Even before the emergence of movies as entertainment in the early 1900s, documentary shorts were being filmed in the state. A new art form was being created, and these flickering images captured the culture of the area and the beauty of Colorado.

The practice of having Colorado stand in for other locations would go on for countless films through the 20th century. Many of them were Westerns, with filmmakers flocking to the state to portray the world of cowboys, gunfighters, and Native Americans.

Photo by Austin Clinkenbeard

Colorado: The star

The 1898 short “Procession of Mounted Indians and Cowboys” displayed Native Americans and cowboys alongside decorated wagons making their way through Denver. Now registered in the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center within the Library of Congress, the short film, directed by former gramophone salesman James H. White, was one of many he filmed in Colorado for Thomas Edison’s production company.

It wasn’t long before Colorado became the filming location of choice for Western movies. Actor and filmmaker Gilbert M. “Broncho Billy” Anderson would shoot many of his productions in the state. Anderson appeared in one of the very first Westerns, “The Great Train Robbery.” Anderson would recreate himself as a cowboy star and is credited with helping develop the genre as we know it, including movies like “The Bandit King” (1907) and “The Heart of a Cowboy” (1909), both shot in Colorado.

Even as the Western began to wane in popularity, the genre continued to be filmed in Colorado. John Wayne shot the classic “True Grit” in the state. Wayne’s role as cantankerous lawman Rooster Cogburn would earn the iconic actor his only Academy Award.

It’s common knowledge how much Robert Redford loves Colorado. The classic film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” shot in several locations including Durango, Silverton, and Telluride. In an act of art imitating life, the real Butch Cassidy’s first bank robbery actually occurred in Telluride in 1889. The film would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.

In the 2000s  filmmakers returned to the state with productions such as Disney’s “The Lone Ranger.” However, the film was a box office disaster, by some accounts losing Disney almost $200 million, and mired in controversy, not the least of which was Johnny Depp’s portrayal of the Native American character Tonto.

Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” turned a respectable profit and earned positive reviews on its way to three Academy Award nominations and winning for Best Original Score for Ennio Morricone, who had created music for several iconic Westerns before his work on “The Hateful Eight.”

Photo from Unsplash

Colorado: The stand in

Charles Chaplin filmed parts of one of his classic “The Gold Rush” in Colorado. This was one of many films that would start a trend of the state standing in for other locations, in this case, Alaska. Set during the Klondike Gold Rush, Chaplin filmed the movie’s opening shot at Mount Lincoln, showing hundreds of the miners portrayed in the film hiking through the snow on toward their hope of golden riches. According to accounts at the time, Chaplin hired hundreds of extras to portray the prospectors.

As the industry grew, blockbusters would discover the state. In the iconic opening scene of Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” we learn how a young Indiana Jones portrayed by River Phoenix not only received his scar but decided to don his iconic fedora. The movie used Colorado as a stand-in for Utah.

Yet the rugged peaks and valleys of Colorado have been stand-ins for locations around the world. Whether or not you are a fan of the long-running “Fast and Furious” series, it’s difficult to deny that the driving sequences and stunts are some of the most thrilling and exciting ever put on film. However, when “Furious 7” needed to shoot a chase sequence set in the Caucasus Mountains of Azerbaijan, once again Hollywood would turn to Colorado as a stand-in.

The state has also lent a military presence to several films. The military has been working with the entertainment industry for almost 100 years, using the opportunity to recruit in exchange for providing studios with equipment and consulting.

The sci-fi alien invasion movie “Independence Day” filmed at the Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. Iconic Cheyenne Mountain, former home to NORAD, has been featured in movies such as “Wargames,” “Interstellar,“ and “Independence Day: Resurgence.” Also, while not featured in the original film, the location was instrumental in the “Stargate” television series and spin offs as the home for the Command Center that housed the titular device that allowed the characters to travel through the universe.

In a reversal of the state’s status as a cinematic stand-in, the Sylvester Stallone film “Cliffhanger” was set in Colorado but shot the majority of its mountain scenes in Italy. A few smaller scenes were filmed in Durango, but director Renny Harlin didn’t like the look of the Rockies, saying they were too old and rounded for his vision. He spent a great deal of time and money to get the look he wanted by filming on the other side of the world. While it did receive some critical drubbings for some of its unrealistic action, “Cliffhanger” was a box office hit and was nominated for three Academy Awards.

Countless movies have been shot in Colorado with the location being part of the plot in obvious ways. Nearly the entire plot of “Dumb and Dumber” revolves around the fact that the two main characters are traveling to Aspen to return a briefcase. Other films have been set in Colorado with the location playing a minimal part in the plot, sometimes just for throwaway bits or quick references to the area.

Photo by Austin Clinkenbeard

It all comes down to money

However, when the location isn’t integral to the story, often the decision whether to film in a state comes down to the tax incentives that state offers. In addition to different tax incentives, some states also offer assistance with scouting locations and even broker deals with certain locations. This not only helps the productions keep budgets down but often gives them access to unique locations they might not have even known about. By enticing productions to shoot in their state, it brings revenue to not only the local film industry but also other local economies such as the lodging and service industries.

Colorado offers a 20% tax rebate credit for productions filmed in the state with a few stipulations. Out-of-state production companies must reach a budget of $1 million to qualify, and 50% of the staff must be Colorado residents.

Will more movies come to Colorado in the future? It’s most likely that Hollywood’s desire to film in Colorado and use its scenic settings won’t stop anytime soon.

However, the future of lower budget movies coming to the state is up in the air because just like so many other things, it all comes down to money. Colorado’s steep spend requirement for out-of-state projects can cause independent films to not consider the state. For many larger budget films, this is an easily achievable goal, but smaller studios may find it difficult to make the numbers work.

In comparison, Virginia has a minimum spend of $250,000 and Alabama $500,000. When creating their budget for a film and where to shoot, productions will need to have serious discussions if having a snow-capped mountain in the background or the uniqueness of a Colorado town is essential to their production or another state might work just as well.

Will Colorado fade into the background like an aging actor or remain a stalwart for the industry like a classic film?

The post Colorado Isn’t a Novice When It Comes To Making Movies appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

As long as they have been creating music, musicians have found ways to make a living doing it. To help the artists’ dreams come true, an entire recording industry and promotional companies, agents, and lawyers evolved, making themselves rich along the way.

In the later half of the 20th century, the music industry expanded and became gatekeepers of what the public listened to. Musicians were swept along in the process, at the whim of corporations, while trying to find ways to get their music to the masses.

As the business grew into a worldwide industry, artists signed multi-million-dollar contracts that looked like golden opportunities. However, these contracts weren’t what they appeared.

A recording company would provide or pay for studios, promotional duties, and even lodging or cash advances. However the fine print of the contracts was usually a lien against album sales. If the records didn’t sell, artists were still legally responsible for the advances or payouts and had to pay them back. Unless the band was The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, these contracts were basically no-interest loans.

The 360 Deals

With the rise of the internet and the streaming of music in the late 1990s, music companies began to offer what became known as “360 deals.”

These contracts encompassed the majority of an artist’s earnings. In exchange for more potential earnings, a company now had a hand in everything an artist did including merchandising and publishing.

These were called “multi-rights deals,” and it wouldn’t be long before musicians such as Madonna and Jay-Z put their signatures on the dotted line to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

For all intents and purposes, if a musician’s name was on the venture, the company got a piece of it. Some of these contracts were even in perpetuity, meaning that if the artist quit music and went into some other field, the record company could claim a share of those earnings. While bigger artists might have been able to negotiate a different deal, often smaller artists just took what they were offered.

Photo by Oleg Ivanov (Unsplash)

Getting people to listen

In the early days it wasn’t uncommon for artists to sell CDs out of the trunk of their car. This was especially common for hip-hop artists. Even without the promotional muscle of a large record label or even on-air radio play of his music, hip-hop artist Too Short claims to have sold 50,000 albums.

In addition to selling albums, artists would beg DJs to play their songs on the radio. In the 1950s, the “payola” scandal emerged from this hustle, with radio stations and other DJs being accused of taking money to play the music of certain artists. While DJs were publicly punished for this, some in the industry claim the practice just went underground.

With the rise of digital technology, musicians had a new tool to get people to listen to their songs in a way that could directly lead to sales. In 2005, Tower Records “Scan and Listen” allowed customers to scan the barcode on a CD and listen to clips from the album to decide if they wanted to buy it. This was a boon to the trend of short, catchy clips dominating the airwaves as opposed to longer songs.

Trumpeter Steve Illich and Dave Flomberg playing with Reptiles and Samurai at the Oriental Theater (Credit: Deb Flomberg-Rollins)

Rise of the Streamers

The newest frontier for exposure of musicians are short-form entertainment platforms such as TikTok. According to an MRC Data study, 67% of TikTok users say they are more likely to seek out songs they heard on the platform. Artists of every level are expected to create short-form entertainment for these platforms.

Musician Halsey shared their thoughts on TikTok: “Everything is marketing. And they are doing this to every artist these days. I just want to release music, man. And I deserve better tbh. I’m tired.” (Halsey uses she/they pronouns.)

Dave Flomberg is a Colorado musician whose career goes back decades. Performing with numerous bands over the years, he has seen the shift of not only musical tastes but the way music has been presented to the masses including the move to social media.

“I think like any other seismic change in music, there’s people who embrace it and people who pillory it,” Flomberg said. “If you embrace it, if you jump in, there’s a market there. You can be successful at if you’re really good at it.”

Arguably the largest platform for getting music to the public is Spotify. Since its launch in 2006, it has grown to nearly 500 million monthly users. The service offers over 100 million songs as well as about 5 million podcasts. While not the only streaming platform, it has a different model than Apple Music or Amazon Music, which offer only pay services versus Spotify’s free use and subscription plans.

Spotify pays artists $.003-.005 per stream on average, but the system for payment is a bit more complicated. The company pays based on “streamshare” and takes into consideration the total number of streams of all music offered on the platform as well as various payout contracts. Every country is going to be different as to rules and approaches, so it’s not as simple as one play equals this much money.

According to an MRC data study, 67% of TikTok users say they are more likely to seek out songs they heard on the platform.

This does work out to about a 70-30 split with the majority going to the artist, however publishers, copyright holders, and others may have their hand in that payout. By comparison, Apple Music claims to pay artists between $0.007 and $0.01 per stream, but that is for a full pay service versus Spotify’s free and pay streams.

According to Spotify, more than 28% of artists who earned over $10,000 from Spotify in 2020-21 were self-distributed. With the rise of home studios and recording abilities, almost anyone can record their own songs without the need for an expensive recording studio. What does this do to the musical landscape?

“It’s a double-edged sword. It’s more democratic now than it’s ever been. All you need is a TikTok account and a means to lay down a few tracks and a halfway decent microphone,” Flomberg says. “So you can produce the music for nothing, and then it becomes about how do you market it. Are you good at marketing? Cream still rises to the top eventually if you’re working hard enough to get it out there, and shitty music will go away.”

However Flomberg admits that there is a learning curve for musicians if they want to be successful in this new reality of music.

“If you’re smart and know how the system works, you can be successful. You can’t change the rules of the game. It’s too big and powerful. You adapt to the rules of what the algorithms will proffer. You figure out, ‘I have to pay to play,’” he says. “I’ve got to get my music out there, and I have to have x number of dollars budgeted for getting my music into the algorithm to get it to other people to hear it.”

Dave Flomberg, Gabriel Otto, Hugh Ragin and Serafin Sanchez in the studio laying down tracks for the Flobots 2017 release NoEnemies.

The festivals

There was a time that joining a festival was the way to fame. Going back to the rock and roll festivals of the 1950s and 1960s, bands would play anywhere they could, hoping to gain new fans and grab the attention of record producers.

In the 1990s, these festivals grew exponentially with the rise of Lollapalooza, Coachella, and others. Promoters even tried another Woodstock, but it became a legendary failure that led to fires, injuries, and even horrific tales of sexual assaults.

“If you were able to get in front of an opener, you basically sacrifice a month of other possible gigs just to play that show to a 500-seat theater,” Flomberg explains.

It really comes down to musicians having to be far more than just artists. With the new landscape of streamers and self-publishing of music, they need to find ways to get people to listen to their songs. They become self-promoters in a way that has never really been seen before.

“You tour and you find ways to get people in the audience to discover you and while they’re captive, if they’re into what you’re doing, getting them to follow you on the spot. Having everyone pull out their phones and hit this QR code,” Flomberg says.

“The artist is no longer just an artist and, whereas you don’t have to be beholden to the label to do the work of marketing you anymore because you don’t really need a label anymore, that does mean that all that work is going to fall on your shoulders. And you’re going to have to become a marketer and a business person.”

The post The New Frontier of Music appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Summertime is almost here again and that means one thing: summer camp! Boulder and the surrounding areas offer a near limitless array of camps, programs, and activities for youth. There is something for everyone!

Yellow Scene prides itself on providing the most up to date and thorough directory in Boulder County, but we suggest you contact camps and programs for individual schedules, availability, and safety precautions.

Animal Ecology 

Arts & Performances

Arts – Visual & Multimedia

Education & Personal Development

Equestrian

Health & Wellness

Outdoors

Pre-School

Religious

School & District Camps

Science, Technology & Gaming

Special Needs

Sports

Traditional

Unique Adventure

Writing 

Lighthouse Writers Workshop – Day camp
3833 Steele St., Ste. 1438, Denver | 303.297.1185 | lighthousewriters.org

The post 2023 Yellow Scene Summer Camp Directory appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Finding love after trauma can be a daunting task, especially on the heels of the collective disruption of the Covid pandemic.

Trauma comes in many forms. A single horrific event can change someone for a lifetime. It could be violence stemming from an incident or relationship that creates post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. Issues can stem back to childhood and complexly shape the way someone not only views the world but how they interact with the people in it, as well as how they love and allow themselves to be loved.

Reactions to trauma are going to be unique for different people. What may only be a bump in the road for one person might be a life-altering event for another. A childhood trauma could be a minor issue for someone while others have their entire life perspective changed. For years as a society, we often had a standard approach to trauma: telling people to get over it, or to go to therapy, but keep it to themselves.

However, that seems to be changing. Just before the Covid pandemic, a Harris Poll survey conducted on behalf of the American Psychological Association showed that 87% of those surveyed believed that having a mental health issue was nothing to be ashamed of. However, 33% said that people with mental health disorders “scared them,” and nearly 40% said they would treat someone differently if they knew they had a mental health disorder.

Reactions to trauma are going to be unique for different people. What may only be a bump in the road for one person might be a life-altering event for another.

With the rise of Covid, we saw a huge upsurge in awareness of mental health issues. Suddenly “self-care” became a common term heard almost everywhere, from friends, family, and the media. Slowly, discussions began to occur about the potential for a mental health pandemic that would follow on the heels of the Covid pandemic and the undeniable trauma suffered by society as a whole.

Even now, as Covid has become a part of our everyday lives, we are only beginning to grapple with the accompanying trauma, adding to the list of ways our mental health can be battered and deeply affecting our personal relationships.

THE TRUTH ABOUT TRAUMA

Trauma is far more common than we like to admit. More than two-thirds of children have endured at least one traumatic event by the time they reach the age of 16. A worldwide survey revealed that one in eight adults have reported childhood sexual abuse while one in four have reported physical abuse. For traumatic events such as sexual assault, it’s estimated by the U.S. Department of Justice that a rape occurs every 133 seconds.

When it comes to trauma occurring in childhood, according to statistics from the National Survey of Children’s Health from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Colorado is not only right in line with national averages, in several categories Colorado is higher. Rates of substance abuse in households are above the national average at nearly 10%. Also higher than average, 7% of households have a parent or guardian who has spent time in jail. 10.4% of Colorado households have reported mental illness, nearly 2.5 percentage points higher than the national average.

Trauma comes in many forms, but in order to understand it better we can break it down into two main categories: direct and indirect. Direct trauma is usually easier to comprehend — when something occurs directly to someone such as physical, mental, or sexual abuse.

Trauma comes in many forms, but in order to understand it better we can break it down into two main categories: direct and indirect.

Indirect trauma is something that happens vicariously to a person. It might be second-hand knowledge or viewing an event live or even on television. Some people are very sensitive to violence, so witnessing something on television can have an effect. Many people suffered indirect trauma from watching the events of 9/11 unfold live through the media. There is also “vicarious trauma,” when someone starts to be affected by things happening to people around them.

Most often discussed is when trauma occurs from a large, invasive event. One that is often cited by psychologists and scholars is the 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping where 26 children were abducted and buried alive for 16 hours. After they were rescued, the children went on to report extreme PTSD and suffered from various issues including drug addiction, anxiety, and other mental health issues.

In 2022, several of the grown children appeared on a podcast special “Nightmare in Chowchilla: The School Bus Kidnapping.” Survivor Larry Park detailed his battles with mental illness, severe anxiety, and drug addiction. Fellow survivor Jennifer Brown Hyde said that even after nearly 50 years, she still suffers panic attacks.

“I can have an anxiety attack over getting in the car with my husband,” Hyde said on the show.

While this is a major event that has been in the public consciousness for decades, more people than you know suffer from trauma and the far-reaching after effects. A single instance of trauma, which can be physical or mental, can cause just as much damage. While not wiring someone in the same way as major childhood trauma, a single instance of trauma can cause PTSD that creates trust issues in adulthood and creates deep-seated personal issues.

Millions of people live with trauma on large and small scales. It hasn’t been until recent years that we as a society have had an open conversation about the real effects of trauma and mental health. For too long it was a “skeleton in the closet,” brushed off, at times, with an “I went through it, so should they” attitude. For generations, inappropriate actions within families was buried and not discussed.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

ENTER COVID

We are still gathering information on the mental health epidemic that is unrolling because of Covid, but its imprint is everywhere. The World Health Organization released statistics showing a 25% rise in reported cases of anxiety in the wake of the pandemic.

More and more people are going to be affected in ways they don’t even realize. How we relate to other people has fundamentally changed, and while many may go forward without any mental health issues, this is most likely not the case on a larger scale.

An entire generation of children has been indelibly marked by the pandemic. We are already seeing disturbing mental health and declining cognitive rates in youth. The idea that these children will not be affected as they move forward in their lives is laughable at best.

We are also seeing a rising rate of adults suffering from depression and anxiety. Mental health caregivers are overwhelmed, not only with the cases they handle but their own issues with depression and anxiety stemming from the community they are serving.

It’s now become a selection of various issues that are affecting the mental health of all types of people. In the midst of all this, we have the human desire to love and be loved. But we need to acknowledge all these mental health issues are going to affect dating and searching for love.

WHAT CAN YOU DO PREPARE YOURSELF TO FIND LOVE?

The first step is to acknowledge and take responsibility for yourself and your mental health. While the trauma isn’t your doing, you have a responsibility to deal with it if you want to be happy and find love. It doesn’t mean you should forget or minimize the trauma in your life, it simply means that to move forward, you need to address it.

It’s like a broken arm. You don’t want to go through life with a shattered bone. You want to have a normal, happy life where you can use your limb. So you go to a professional for help and, if needed, undergo physical therapy to regain use of your arm. In many ways, it’s the same with trauma.

You don’t want to go through life with a shattered bone. You want to have a normal, happy life where you can use your limb.

Getting help from a professional is usually the first step and the most powerful one. A therapist can guide and help you deal with issues and prepare for the future.

Be aware, it’s not going to be a quick fix. This idea that a few appointments and maybe a hypnosis session to suddenly remember and forgive childhood trauma is not how it works. Just like recovery from a broken bone, healing trauma can be arduous.

“If it’s childhood trauma, that’s going to be very deep running,” relationship expert Bethany Barton says. “Childhood trauma can take so long to undo because it’s literally how you view everything.”

Barton explains that a person’s ability to sense danger or what is acceptable is skewed because of the way they grew up and how they dealt with it. This wires the very way you interact with the world. Barton relays the story of a woman who didn’t have the right skills to trust and discern her partner’s true intentions.

“I’ve seen it with money. She was used to being used financially. She thought it was normal because it had happened to her before,” Barton remembers. “She had to really learn to rebuild it. You’re too desensitized to that type of behavior.”

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

ARE YOU READY TO DATE?

Every trauma and the recovery from it is unique, so there isn’t a measuring stick that everyone can use. 

“At some point you have to get out into the field,” says Barton.

If you have done the work and are doing it for the right reasons, then sometimes you just have to dive in. But be careful. Don’t rush things. You might not be ready yet.

“Is half of your day spent just making sure you’re ok? That you’re not triggered? That everything is fine?” Barton asks. “If that’s the reality, then that’s ok, that’s just where you are.” 

But that’s the point where you have to ask if it’s the right time to start searching for a partner. It might be better to wait and continue to work on yourself. Currently a popular concept is to “date yourself,” which basically means learn what you like, enjoy, and get to know yourself. Even if you meet the perfect person, you might not be ready to love or be loved before spending time working on yourself.

“Would you want to include someone else in that?” Barton asks about people who are still in the midst of handling trauma and PTSD. “If the answer is no, then why? Work on the why.”

But if you feel like you’re ready, then it’s ok. Just be aware it might be a bumpy road.

Every trauma and the recovery from it is unique, so there isn’t a measuring stick that everyone can use.

“There are going to be triggers regardless, so you’re just going to have to keep working through them,” Barton warns. “Just because things are coming up in the relationship doesn’t mean you aren’t healed.”

One important step in preparing to date is taking responsibility for your triggers. It doesn’t mean they aren’t important or should be ignored, but part of the healing process is becoming more aware of triggers and how you react to them.

“I think it’s very overused in the sense of ‘that triggers me so you can’t do it anymore,’” Barton says. “You want to find the middle ground. Our triggers are actually our responsibility. They are individualized to us. Our individual triggers are things we need to work on personally. Express it, but also take some responsibility for it.”

Another important part of the process is forgiving yourself and realizing that not only can you be loved, you deserve it. This is a difficult step for many, especially if they are dealing with deep-seated issues stemming from childhood trauma and past relationships that created painful scars.

Here are some signs that you might not yet be healing or on the right path with your recovery:

• You have difficulty revisiting the history around your trauma. If it still brings on major triggers or anxiety, insomnia, or other disruptive events, you may need to give yourself time and space to care for yourself.
• You are seeking support in unhealthy ways such as random and fleeting sexual encounters or returning to abusive relationships. Also if you seek out toxic people, this is a sign you are still having issues.
• Therapy isn’t effective. If you are pushing back and not working with your therapist, it’s a sign you aren’t ready. Or if you think therapy is a magic pill that will cure you in a few sessions, you should consider revisiting your process. You also might not be working with the right mental health professional for your needs and could consider finding one who is best for you.

DATING

If you feel you’ve done the work and are ready to find love, it can be frightening but it can also be the next step in recovery from trauma. 

“Relationships can be very healing. There’s absolutely hope that it could help you on that path,” Barton says. “There’s healing, it’s just not your lifeboat. It’s a precarious place. If you wait long enough to pick a healthy relationship, it could be the final stage of your healing where you find comfort in that person.”

There’s no perfect plan. Trauma recovery is going to be a different path for every person.

“Some of it I think truthfully is just trial and error. If you go on a date and it’s a complete nightmare, then you can reanalyze that maybe I’m not ready,” Barton counsels. “That’s the hard thing with healing and trauma. It’s not linear. It’s one step forward and two steps back a lot of the time.”

Once you’ve gone on the date and possibly found someone you are interested in, when should you tell them about your trauma? What about triggers?

“I think it really depends on the level of trauma and how that would affect you moving forward. The kind of trauma of a rape is going to be very different than a bad engagement,” Barton says. “I would say at least for the initial date, it’s about just seeing if you are compatible on the most basic level. I would say not on the first date.”

“Relationships can be very healing. There’s absolutely hope that it could help you on that path.”

People suffering from trauma also need to be wary of predators. There are those who seek out individuals who have been traumatized, preying on their insecurities and habits. It’s a cycle that is seen far too often as people say they are attracted to the bad characteristics and need to take ownership of their own trauma.

There is also the danger of bonding with someone who has a similar trauma. While it might be a healthy relationship where you support each other, there is a real possibility that it can become a co-dependent relationship where an unhealthy over-reliance on each other is created that can damage the mental health of both parties.

“That’s part of the issue, too. The people that you may feel connected to or attracted to for a while could be reflecting back to you what your own wounds and issues are,” Barton says.

Barton explains that this is where you need to start looking for patterns and acknowledging that you not only want change, but you are ready to implement it.

“If you grew up in a home with a narcissist parent, you believe that how you serve someone else is love. That’s the only value of your love. So you wouldn’t value your own love at the level of companionship. That would actually feel very uncomfortable to you if you had someone who was really stable and in a good place. You wouldn’t understand how you fit into that equation because you haven’t been taught that’s what your value is.”

“You seek out these sorts of people because it makes you feel comfortable,” Barton says. “Even though that’s really toxic and unhealthy and you’re getting used. It’s also getting to the bottom of what your patterning is and getting into not just what happened to you in your childhood but what does that look like moving forward.”

Someone who is dealing with PTSD from trauma is very likely to bring it into the relationship and the way they deal with their partner. Anxiety, avoidance, and trust issues are the most common problems that arise. As you begin to interact with a potential love interest, you may start to see your trauma more clearly and realize you have more work to do.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

HOW DO YOU DATE SOMEONE DEALING WITH TRAUMA?

It’s a romantic thought that you could date someone with a traumatic experience and love will be enough to get you both through. If only love were that easy.

As the relationship develops and a person learns about the trauma and triggers, avoiding them is important. Not because you don’t want to set someone off and definitely not because you want to avoid an outburst or conflict if that’s their reaction. You do it because you care about the person. It’s also important not to minimize their feelings through your actions and reactions.

It’s also essential to help your partner work through triggers and grow. Listening and communicating is key, as is patience. But what if it reaches a point where you just don’t feel like you can make it work?

“It’s not a perfect process because humans and trauma can be all over the place,” Barton says, explaining that you have to ask some difficult questions. “Is this something I can handle? What concessions and compromises am I willing to make? If you are dealing with someone who is very actively triggered, they may not be able to effectively communicate with you.”

“Is this something I can handle? What concessions and compromises am I willing to make?”

And there may come that moment, where no matter how you feel about someone, you need to make a difficult decision about the relationship. You can love someone and understand their trauma, but it doesn’t mean it’s the right time or even the right relationship. It could be one of the most difficult things a person has ever done, but there might be a moment to walk away to protect yourself.

“I think everyone has their breaking point. Trauma is hard,” Barton admits. “It can take over your life and relationships and make you not yourself in them. Everyone has to determine what they are capable of dealing with.”

Barton points out that just because things aren’t working, by no means is it the time to be cruel or flippant. Removing yourself from the relationship can be very painful, but don’t make it cruel or without compassion.

“The worst thing you can do is be like, ‘You’re crazy. I’m not dealing with you. You’re the problem,’” Barton says. “As long as you are as compassionate as you can be about it, that’s all you can do.”

The post Learning to Love Again While Living with Trauma appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.