Trauma
Trauma is a GIANT umbrella term that goes way beyond what I thought when I was a brand-new therapist. Trauma is natural disasters, assaults and accidents, right? Well, yeah, but there’s A LOT more traumas than the obvious ones.
If you came to this trauma page because it was linked to situational anxiety, it’s about to make sense.
Simply put, trauma is when something causes separation from the true self. It doesn’t matter what causes this, just that we water down or lock up who we really are and what we do when the reason we had to do that is gone.
Situational anxiety is when your nervous system has associated that situation with a feeling of threat. Sometimes this makes complete sense. If your teacher is a jerk to you when you answer a question in class, you learn not to ask. That’s called adaptive behavior, and that’s NOT trauma - it’s survival. It makes sense for the situation.
Then you become an adult. You’re in a meeting with a good point to make, and you know logically that everyone is fine, but you don’t make your point because part of you is saying, “Are you crazy, don’t speak up!” Okay, so that adaptive behavior that kept you safe from the teacher’s ridicule is now keeping you from moving forward = maladaptive behavior = trauma. The behavior is no longer helpful, and it holds you back.
I had an amazing client who would get HIGH anxiety if it was time to do any running or cardio exercises. I’m talking panic attack and tears. We traced this back to a sports coach in elementary school that humiliated her almost daily in practice for being the slowest, making her run in front of everyone as punishment. Fast forward a decade and the feelings she had back then came rushing back to keep her from running. We used a combination of EMDR, parts therapy, CBT and mindfulness to resolve this issue.
What we did is change the association from unsafe to safe. Her entire body realized that the asshole coach was never going to harm her again, and she can feel pride instead of shame. Bingo! We ended therapy after she competed in an endurance event and kicked ass! Imagine feeling pride in pushing through a challenge instead of shame or fear!
Fill in your own blanks here. I don’t __________ because it makes me feel ______________ when I try or even think about trying it.
One of the most fulfilling experiences is when clients learn to reduce and manage their anxiety, feel confident enough to try, and really start living their lives. That’s trauma recovery!