A Life Worth Living, Goal?

Someone take these dreams away
That point me to another day
A duel of personalities
That stretch all true realities
-- Joy Division

It has taken me years to be able to come up with what makes my life worth living. I had a bit of a breakthrough during the last week and maybe I can record it in some sort of goal.

I want to reduce the sadness I experience when thinking about, particularly when remembering, traumatic events. Trauma hits me often in waves of increasing severity that seem like they will never stop. Trauma that happens to me, trauma that happens to loved ones, trauma that happens to strangers -- continuing the water metaphor it all wells up in me and I cry until the tears and snot stop flowing. After crying myself out I think the next stage is being distracted or the pressure will just build. But the distractions are temporary and I wonder if I heal at all because the next time I recall a trauma, it seems just as intense as the last time (even though I rarely have flashbacks).

I have not met anyone else that experiences trauma like I do -- perhaps there are relatively few of us as some choose death over living in misery. The only reason I am not dead is the huge amount of therapy I have gone through which (among other things) has given me a toolbox with coping mechanisms galore -- but the ones involving distraction are my go-to tools. This leads to a life of distraction after distraction to just get through the day. Sure it is a life, but is it a life worth living? My guess is most people would say no.

So is it possible to:

1. Reduce exposure to new traumatic experiences?
2. Reduce the frequency of remembering traumatic events?
3. Avoid being hit by waves of increasing severity?
4. Physically react in some way besides crying myself out?
5. Cope more effectively than a sequence of distractions?

Brainstorming this is what I can come up with:

1. Avoid warzones, avoid dramatic people/relationships at the expense of relationships in which I can be vulnerable, avoid traumatic news stories (read: almost all news), distance myself from situations that are triggering
2. Distance myself from situations that are triggering, modify the list of my possible triggers as I learn them, be mindful of memories and steer thoughts toward the positive and away from the negative (easier said than done), detangle sad memories that I (my brain?) have somehow tangled with other memories, make new memories in an attempt to crowd-out old ones, hypnotism, lobotomy
3. Learn to better recognize the waves on the horizon ("hello darkness my old friend") then use the best distractions I have available, hypnotism, lobotomy
4. Find a new drug that reigns in my crying more (without blunting my other senses which is unlikely but I am just brainstorming here), hypnotism, lobotomy
5. Direct my feelings and energy into something specific to the trauma be it blogging, some other expression maybe through art, or volunteering (say at a rape crisis center when I hear a pundit engage in victim-blaming related to a sexual assault)

I wonder again if these tiny bandages would create a life worth living. Or would they involve being so removed from the realities of everyday, modern life that all I would be doing is living in a fantastic bubble. Or are some of these ideas even possible.