Trauma, like ogres and onions, has many layers.

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Trauma, like ogres and onions, has many layers.

Trauma, like ogres and onions, has many layers.

What is trauma? 

Trauma is anything that happened to you that changed the way you look at yourself or the world. I know that’s pretty broad, but what is trauma to one person may not be trauma to another. Trauma doesn’t have to be something horrific like being in a war zone, seeing someone killed, or being molested. It can be things like getting bullied, being raised in a chaotic household, or not being believed.

“It really wasn’t that bad…”

Oftentimes we minimize our trauma as we think that will make it easier to bear.  I often hear people say, “I know other people had it worse,” “It shouldn’t affect me like that,” or, “It’s in the past and it doesn’t matter anymore (this is rarely true if the trauma has not been dealt with).” Please don’t compare your trauma to someone else’s, that’s not fair to you. Some people have more internal and/or external resources and so they may seem to handle trauma “better.” 

Layers of the mind: How does trauma affect us?

Trauma at different stages of life may affect us differently.  While minimizing our trauma may be helpful in the short-term, in the long-term if trauma is not dealt with it can lead to problematic behaviors, addiction, and relationship problems. A child who is living with their abuser may need to be in denial of the abuse to try and feel safe.  An adult who is no longer living with their abuser may be safe, but still not feel safe.

The Mind of a Child

I’m sure you’ve heard that our brains aren’t fully developed (I like to think of them as not being totally cooked yet) until we are in our mid to late 20s.  Children view and think about things differently than adults as they don’t have a fully developed brain.  They also do not have the same coping skills as adults.

The world can be a scary place to a child.  They know that they don’t have much control over their lives and that they must depend on others to ensure their survival.  Children often think that they have more control over things than they actually do. For example, a child who is neglected by their caretaker may believe that they have done something wrong to merit that neglect.  It’s less scary than thinking that something is wrong with their caretaker, and if they believe it’s their fault they may believe that they can fix it.

Abuse, neglect, and attachment

When a primary caretaker is abusive emotionally, physically, sexually, or is neglectful of our physical or emotional needs as a child we may develop a problem with feeling securely attached to others.  After what seems like a lifetime of being unheard, unseen, unloved, and unwanted as children, we continue to seek out someone to fill these holes inside ourselves and make us feel whole.  This can lead us to bad relationships where we continue to get abused.  We may believe that we deserve this continued abuse or that abuse is just the price we pay for “love.”  We may feel so desperate for love and attention that we end up recreating patterns of the original abuse with someone else.

Push-Pull: Layers of Attachment

People with insecure attachment often struggle with the push-pull in their relationships.  They pull their partner towards them, desperate for love.  Then that may feel scary, they may believe that their partner will leave them just like everyone does, or they may need to feel that their partner will love them no matter what, so they push their partner away.  This push-pull makes romantic and platonic relationships difficult and if healing is not done around these attachment wounds it makes it very difficult to have satisfying relationships.

Overwhelming fear

People with trauma have overwhelming fear and anxiety.  Even though logically they may understand that they are grown and the situation that traumatized them is no longer happening, a part of them may still be locked in the time of that trauma.  It is important to heal these traumas to have a better quality of life, be less fearful, and to have optimal functioning.

“I don’t do self-compassion.”

I hear this from most of my clients with trauma, especially childhood trauma.  Chances are that if your caretaker traumatized you they were also traumatized by their caretakers (intergenerational abuse).  Most of us learn how to regulate our emotions and how to deal with stress from our caregivers, but if they never learned how to do these things, they can’t teach us.  If your caregivers never learned self-compassion, chances are it will seem foreign and scary to you.  Or you may have been told that self-compassion is a negative trait by someone who wanted to control you with manipulation.  Even though it’s hard, self-compassion is one of the best ways to heal trauma and attachment wounds.

Self-compassion can be just admitting that you are human and you make mistakes.  It’s not a way to excuse improper behavior, but a way to be kind to ourselves for our mistakes.  It’s really hard when you start it, but if you stick with it you will see some beautiful changes.  

One of my favorite self-compassion quotes is the Buddhist prayer on forgiveness:

“If I have harmed anyone in any way either knowingly or unknowingly through my own confusions, I ask their forgiveness.

If anyone has harmed me in any way either knowingly or unknowingly through their own confusions, I forgive them.

And if there is a situation I am not yet ready to forgive, I forgive myself for that.

For all the ways that I harm myself, negate, doubt, belittle myself, judge, or be unkind to myself through my own confusions, I forgive myself.”

So, what can I do to feel better?

There are many activities and forms of therapy that can help heal trauma and attachment wounds.  I would encourage you to find a good therapist that specializes and has experience in treating people with trauma and attachment issues.  I find that talk therapy works for some people, while others respond better to EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), and others respond well to IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapy.  There are many other things that you can do in conjunction with therapy that are helpful.

Other things that can you can do for improved mental health and well-being:

  • Sing your favorite love song to yourself – corny, but also empowering
  • Make sure you’re getting enough sleep
  • Exercise (this helps increase serotonin and can decrease adrenaline and cortisol)
  • Try and keep your diet as healthy as possible
  • Be kind to yourself and the parts of you that are struggling
  • Use your social supports
  • Try to avoid numbing with substances

Why the hell am I still feeling this?!

Trauma can pop up at different stages of our lives, even if you’ve done the work and feel better, there are events or situations that can make parts of it come back. For example, a woman with children may find that her childhood trauma pops back up when her children are as old as she was during the abuse. Recovery, unfortunately, is not linear, but you won’t lose all the good work you’ve already done. If this happens, please be kind to yourself, you haven’t done anything wrong, this is just how trauma layers itself.