Trauma & PTSD
Of all the things trauma takes away from us, the worst is our willingness, or even our ability to be vulnerable. There's a reclaiming that has to happen.
What is trauma?
Trauma is an internal psychic wound that limits one’s capacity to live as fully as one would like. According to Dr. Gabor Maté, “trauma is a psychic wound that hardens you psychologically that then interferes with your ability to grow and develop. Trauma creates pain so now you are acting out of pain. It induces fear and now you’re acting out of fear, so without knowing it, your whole life is regulated by fear and pain that you’re trying to escape from in various ways.”
The origin of the word ‘trauma’ comes from the Greek word trauma, which means “wound”. Maté poignantly compares trauma to scar tissue that makes you less flexible, more rigid, less feeling and more defended. Trauma occurs when there is a loss of feeling and there is a reduced flexibility in responding to the world. This is a response to a wound.
Common effects of emotional trauma
- Substance use
- Compulsive behavior patterns
- Self-destructive & impulsive behavior
- Uncontrollable reactive thoughts
- Feelings of inadequacy, shame, despair, hopelessness
- Inability to make healthy professional or lifestyle choices
- Dissociative symptoms
- Sexual problems
- Social withdrawal
- Hostility in relationships
- Feeling constantly threatened
- Feeling permanently damaged
- Loss of previously sustained beliefs
- Inability to maintain close relationships or choose appropriate friends and mates
Trauma can occur in a single episode or repeated episodes over time. A single major traumatic episode is often referred to as ‘Big T’ trauma, whereas repeated ‘smaller’ traumas in a relationship are often referred to as ‘Little T’ traumas. ‘Big T’ traumas can include events such as abuse, neglect or being victimized by war to natural disasters such as earthquakes.
Complex trauma occurs when there are a series of repetitive, and sometimes escalating, traumatic events. These often occur over a prolonged period of time, and usually in a specific context, such as in an attachment relationship (Courtois & Ford, 2013). In these instances, the traumatic experiences are referred to as complex relational trauma.
What is important to understand is that much of the damage in complex relational trauma comes from the accumulated effect of the repeated ‘Little T’ traumas. This is particularly the case when children are involved who don’t have a frame of reference or stable identity to be able to fully understand what is happening and why it is wrong.
As Dr. Gabor Maté explains, if a child’s environment does not support their gut feelings and emotions, the child will automatically, unwittingly, and unconsciously suppress these emotions and their connection to themselves. This suppression occurs in order to 'belong' and 'fit in,' ensuring they remain connected to the nurturing environment, which is essential for their survival. Unfortunately, many children face this dilemma: 'Can I feel and express what I feel, or do I have to suppress my emotions in order to be acceptable, to be a good kid, to be a nice kid?
We refer to this as ‘emotional learning’ or ‘emotional memory.’ This emotional memory transforms past experiences into future expectations, often without our awareness. What we learn in childhood extends into our understanding of the greater world. This emotional learning is also remembered somatically. The storing of these memories happens subconsciously and autonomically and may be experienced separately from the conscious recall of the actual traumatic events. This bodily storing or remembering of trauma occurs through visceral responses, autonomic and muscle memory, and habits.
This remembering has a good intention – we are trying to avoid what feels bad and move towards what feels safe. The problem arises when we experience somatic symptoms of the trauma and do not realize we are remembering something from the past. Essentially, we confuse the past with the present, causing the worst experiences from our past to persist as felt emotional realities in our present day.
The first step to growth is to get uncomfortable.
Treating Trauma
There is hope for trauma survivors to become trauma thrivers! Hope and healing are possible. With the advancements in neuroscience, old memories and implicit, subconscious emotional and physiological responses can be unlocked. Neuroplasticity—the capacity of the nervous system to modify itself functionally and structurally—can be achieved through a process known as Memory Reconsolidation.
Trauma treatments, also referred to as ‘modalities’ that can support the process of Memory Reconsolidation include:
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Inner Child Work & Parts Therapy
- Somatic Therapies
With each of these modalities, we are looking to reconsolidate the memories and patterns caused by those original traumas, repatterning more positive thoughts and belief systems into the autonomic nervous system. This in turn frees individuals to feel more embodied, grounded in the here and now, and possess a greater sense of clarity.