Trauma Talk
Once burned. Twice shy.
In our post-Freudian internet age, everybody is a shrink (though not necessarily a good one!):
I forgot my keys. I’m so ADD!
I’m obsessed with that skin cream.
You’re so OCD about your stuff.
I’m uncomfortable at parties. Must be on the spectrum.
They were out of my favorite salad dressing. It was … traumatic!
Let’s throw out the diagnostic manuals and talk trauma.
We’re not disturbed by what happened to us. We’re disturbed by our memories of what happened to us. — Sigmund Freud
Our evolutionary history, based on millennia of living in a very dangerous world, has implanted a meta-message in our minds: “Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.” That command algorithm is very good at generating paranoid vigilance against emergent enemies and threats, and that increases our survival statistics (yay!). It is also very good at making us chronically anxious and miserable. That is why the mental practices of Buddhism and Stoicism (and their ‘modern’ form of CBT and mindfulness) are so useful to so many people.
Trauma is more than just garden-variety stress and hard times. The essential definition of trauma is
The mind/body response to a situation that is perceived as an immediate threat to one’s life (survival) and/or limb (bodily integrity)
Trauma puts our default fear system on steroids. It’s like the difference between watching a scary movie and being IN the movie.
Contrary to good Puritan/Stoical principles, what doesn’t (literally) kill us does NOT always make us stronger. It can make us fearful and fragile, often for years.
Trauma changes us permanently by shattering our belief in a safe and just world. “Recovery” involves more than symptom reduction. It requires the building of a new existential paradigm and an effective way of navigating through life as it is. It can take a long time to do this successfully.
The lesson to be learned from trauma is not that the world is a dangerous place. That mindset will only compound and extend the suffering. The right learning is that the world has both safe and unsafe people and places, and we must be alert to the difference and prepare to meet both scenarios.
There is an important difference between the “PTSD” caused by a single traumatic event and what is called complex developmental trauma caused by multiple adverse events during childhood. The first is like being struck by a rattlesnake. The second is like growing up with a rattlesnake in your house.
People who have suffered from complex trauma grow up to be like a skyscraper built on sand. Successful treatment involves some major foundation work and shoring up. The result is not another skyscraper. More like a comfortable single-family home.
For people who have suffered “real” trauma (see definition above), simply showing up each day is an act of almost unimaginable courage.
The only positive thing that can be said about trauma is that if a sufferer can manage to even partially escape the wreckage, they have the possibility of recognizing, by contrast, the truly wondrous and precious nature of a functioning self and a fulfilling life.
I took a deep dive into the literature on trauma for better understanding. Here is what I learned and some of my own thoughts on the matter. ⬇️
Trauma, tragedy,
trouble, trials on the trail.
To be co-contained.
...
Vicarious trauma,
when others are the hurt ones,
takes toll on us all.
...
Post-traumatic growth,
not free, cheap, nor normative.
May it be worth it.
My mom used to say when everything is trauma, nothing is.
We’ve kind of crammed every kind of struggle into one word, and in doing that, we’ve lost the ability to tell what’s actually going on and respond to it properly.
Love the rattlesnake analogy.
Happy Monday, Baird.