Traumatic experiences can keep you from living life the way you want to. It can keep you from feeling like you’re actually living at all. Understanding what trauma is and how it effects you can be difficult: was what you went through “bad enough” to count? What if you can’t pinpoint a specific incident? Is there such thing as being just traumatized by life in general?
What is “trauma?”
Trauma can be defined simply as an event, often with a clear before and after, that changes the way you see and respond to yourself, others, and the world around you. The American Psychological Association details some of the feelings that can arise from distressing experiences. Sometimes this is a single experience. Sometimes it’s a series of experiences over time. Sometimes there is no clear before and after: you may have experienced a number of hardships or challenges from an early age that stacked on top of each other and made things more difficult. All of these things can be “trauma.”
Also, not every potentially traumatic even will be actually traumatic. This depends on what resources and supports each person experiencing the event has.
I didn’t go through anything that bad. And my parents were great.
I’m glad! There might not be a single awful thing that stands out. And hey, your parents and family might be really great. Sometimes external challenges in the world can still give us a hard time. Also, sometimes our caregivers did their best, but there were things outside of their abilities or control that were still hard for us. We don’t have to put down anyone’s character to admit we still experienced something negative from them. Being human is complicated. We can give credit and also recognize where things didn’t go quite right.
But challenges over a lifetime accumulates vulnerabilities over a lifetime, which can result in more difficult experiences that stack up and lend their own vulnerabilities. Wherever the difficulties came from, there tends to be a pattern in people affected in some way by accumulated trauma over the long term: something happened around the age of 5 that made you feel like you were different from others, and you made some rules to try to accommodate that. Something around the age of 10 or so made you feel like you were “bad,” and you added some rules to try and adjust for that. And something around 15-20 happened that made you feel like you were very deeply alone, and you again adjusted yourself to try to accommodate that.
The result can be a difficult life that doesn’t suit you. You might not know who you are.
Whether we call it trauma or not, whatever the challenges are, it can be worth talking through and sorting out in therapy. You deserve for your life to feel like it’s about you, not just the things that happened to you. The concept of trauma therapy might sound challenging, and it can be. But the life and meaning you make through this process will be worth it. My goal is to walk alongside you and support you in building your sense of who you are, who you want to be, and what you can do to make your life your own.
If this sounds like your experience, or you’re not sure but you’d like to explore this more, you can schedule a free 15-20 minute phone consultation with me and see if we might be a good therapeutic match.