Understanding “What is a Trauma?”
One of the biggest questions I ask my clients when I first meet them is “have you experienced any trauma?” This question always is paired with a minimizing answer. Even though we minimize it for the sake of, “it wasn’t that bad,” it is one of the most telling of questions.
Trauma has a lot of definitions but this is the one I tell my clients: Trauma is anything you had trouble coping with. Now you could say that would be almost everything! Yes, trauma doesn’t always have to fall under the prerequisite of this “huge” thing that happened. It can be small little things that build up over time or make us step back and say, “did that actually just happen?”
Normally, our trauma will happen and naturally, we will look to our environment to assure us that what happened (1) it even happened or (2) it was as traumatic as it felt. If we are validated in either one of these questions, then we tend to cope with our trauma in a healthier way and we can move forward. But, if either of these is not validated in our environment, then the way we process the situation, our beliefs about ourselves, our beliefs about the people involved, or our beliefs about the environment will be influenced moving forward.
Trauma needs to be validated and heard. If we don’t acknowledge either one of these things with something that happened, it will come back later for it to be validated and heard. Suppressing these feelings only makes our emotions and feelings about the trauma more intense. Suppressing is only delaying the inevitable. The inevitable is having to face the trauma and the emotions involved with it.
Let’s circle back to this idea that we look to our environment to validate what happened to us and how it felt and how this changes our perceptions. If we are not validated or the trauma is not acknowledged, this interferes with our instinct and intuition to gauge situations. If we are not validated, then we must look to people, the environment, and strangers to validate everything we experience. This turns our feelings and reality into doubt unless otherwise acknowledged by others. This will lead our actions to rely on others and ultimately to codependency.
If what we felt “wasn’t that bad”; this also doesn’t allow us to trust our feelings. We then turn our perceptions about ourselves as being “wrong”. Have you ever said to yourself that you are “over-exaggerating” or “being too sensitive?” This is a way of self-gaslighting. If you want to know more about self-gaslighting, check out our post here. We are telling ourselves that our emotions are not real and then again look to our environment, others, and strangers for acknowledgment instead of learning to rely on ourselves.
If we have others involved in our trauma and they deny our trauma and our feelings and they are people we should trust, this will change our perceptions about the people we designate as trustworthy. We can fall into either of these extremes: I need these people to validate my reality because I cannot do this myself based on my experiences or I cannot trust anyone because I can’t even trust the people I’m “supposed” to. We take this belief (either one) and use this to form new relationships. This is where we can see either no boundaries with people showing up or too many walls being built up. This lack of validation from our support system about our trauma distorts our view of connection with others. And since we cannot gauge our own feelings as being “real” or “right” we will then look to our newfound relationships for assurance. If this vulnerability is being placed in the wrong hands, we will in turn either be taken advantage of or victimized.
Our trauma can also misrepresent our environment because we have these distorted perceptions of what is considered “safe” and “unsafe”. If our trauma was not validated and our feelings not heard, we may interrupt that a victimized state is a “safe” place because our environment validated it so. This leads us to view our environment inappropriately and we then can become victimized again.
You can see how trauma really impacts everything that happens from then on out and why this question is so important. Therapy allows you to unravel these distorted perceptions and gives you a place of safety to rewrite them and ultimately teaches you that you have the power again. Trauma therapy is about validating and acknowledging your trauma and learning how to do this for yourself without the need for your environment to do so for you.
