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TraumaDrama Part 1
175 Plays1 year ago
This week, Julie (a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional) is sharing what she wishes everyone knew about trauma. Part 1 (of 2) we will explore what is trauma, Big T vs little T, Complex trauma, and what exactly is a “trauma response.”
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast & Content Warning
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to outside of session. I'm your host, licensed clinical social worker and therapist BFF, Julie Hilton. We're going to cover all the things here, whether it's mental health, entrepreneurship, relationships, trauma, or just life. Nothing is off limits. Hopefully you'll laugh a little and learn a lot, but most importantly, feel encouraged on your journey to live empowered.
00:00:33
Speaker
Hey everyone, before we jump into today's episode, I want to give a heads up that this episode is about trauma, as you saw in the title. And I always want to give a little bit of a trigger warning that a lot of topics are going to be discussed about different types of trauma, different types of traumatic events, those kind of topics. And so I always try to give people a heads up that if this is a little bit overwhelming for your system to hear all of this,
00:01:00
Speaker
Maybe either skip this episode or at least break it up into little parts. Um, doing five, 10 minutes as you can. Um, whatever you need, just be really, really protective of yourself as you listen and learn about trauma.
Season One Finale & Focus on Trauma
00:01:18
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of outside of session. In fact, today is the final episode of season one of outside of session. And I just want to say, as you've heard me say it before, I just want to pause and say thank you so much to every single person who has been following along on this journey, who is
00:01:41
Speaker
done all the things that are so supportive, whether you've liked or commented or subscribed or shared this podcast. Like it has just been such a wild ride, but in such a good way. And I just want to say thank you so much for making it the success that it's been so far this season. Um, so today is going to be the final episode. And today we're going to be talking about trauma, which is like,
00:02:05
Speaker
I realized like I've recorded all these episodes and I haven't even done a specific episode of trauma and that's like the majority of what I specialize in so I was like yeah we need to end on the note of really diving into and exploring trauma and trauma treatment.
00:02:20
Speaker
um and to be honest like i sat down to make some notes for today and i realized like there's so much to share that i wouldn't be surprised if this ended up being a two-part episode so maybe there is going to be another episode next week i don't know yet um it depends on how when did i get when i start talking today um so this is the last episode but it might be two-part episode we'll see
00:02:43
Speaker
because I do try to keep these episodes relatively short so that if you're listening to it on your commute or on a walk or something like that you can get through the whole episode.
Preview of Season Two & Trauma Definitions
00:02:54
Speaker
But one of the reasons why I decided to go ahead and wrap up this season is because
00:02:59
Speaker
There are so many topics that I could still talk about. Um, but I really want to do it differently in season two. So next season, I'm actually going to be having a ton of guests on the podcast. So that's a little bit of like an announcement to make next season. I'm going to have all these interviews with specialists in the mental health field or in whatever they're like field of expertise is.
00:03:24
Speaker
And I wanted to do this because I don't want to just be giving you my opinion and my thoughts on things too. Like I think that there's a lot of value in just having conversations with other professionals, but doing it in a way where they are able to talk about it outside of session too. You know, so you're going to get a really authentic approach. And I've got some really cool guests lined up already that I'm so excited, like I can't wait to start sharing with you who these people are. But I'm just excited for their stories to be told.
00:03:52
Speaker
So I don't have any information yet on when season two is going to be released. I've got to wrap my mind around that. Like I've got to start getting some of these interviews done. So be patient with me. It may take a couple of months, but season two is going to be a ton of interviews with other, mostly like mental health professionals on all different topics. That way you're not just having to hear me talk anymore. Okay. But for today, we are going to be talking about trauma.
00:04:17
Speaker
And what I want to talk about today is what exactly is trauma? Like how do we define it? So we're going to talk about big T trauma versus little T trauma, the difference in CPTSD. I also want to talk a little bit about what is a trauma response because that's like a word that I'm seeing everywhere now and people are talking all about their trauma responses.
00:04:41
Speaker
And then finally, I want to hit on what is it like to treat trauma? And what does that even mean? Like, how do you treat trauma? Okay, so to start with talking about like, what even is trauma? And it can be somewhat hard to define because it is very subjective, right? Like some people think of trauma as the things that you see on criminal minds.
00:05:05
Speaker
and the things that like your brain automatically goes to when you think of trauma. But really, Julie, those are just what we call big T trauma, like capital T trauma.
00:05:17
Speaker
Those are the things that, in my opinion, the best way to describe them is there's an element to it that your life is in danger or you are afraid for your life. So those big T traumas are going to be, yes, like the things that you see on criminal minds like an attack,
00:05:36
Speaker
Things like a mass shooting, which I've been working with several clients lately that have survived a mass shooting. It can be things like a car wreck where you either lost control of the vehicle and there was a moment where you felt like you could potentially die.
00:05:57
Speaker
It could be if you are a veteran of war. Those are the kind of things that typically come to our mind when we think about trauma, but those are really just what we call big T trauma. It's an event where you can clearly define the beginning of it and the end of it. You can clearly recall what day it happened on. It's one singular event that has a start, has an end, and
00:06:27
Speaker
you typically think about you either thought that you could potentially lose your life or someone you love or you like witness someone else coming close to losing their life. Like there's, there's an element of it of like mortality.
00:06:41
Speaker
So that's what I call like a big T trauma. But I like to look at trauma as a whole of more of a spectrum like I talk about with so many other things like that is not the only thing that is considered trauma. And I think that that's where people get hung up a lot is they think that if they haven't lived through something that scary and that severe,
00:07:01
Speaker
that they minimize their experience and they say, oh, like, no, I haven't lived through any trauma because I've never come close to anything like that before. But it's a spectrum, right? So a little T trauma is something that's not quite that severe.
00:07:17
Speaker
But it is still traumatic. So those are the things that I like to think about of, there was not a question of whether or not this was a life or death situation. Like that element has kind of taken out of it. To me, if it's life or death, it automatically makes it a big capital T trauma.
00:07:35
Speaker
So it means that there's not necessarily an element of that with it. But for a little t trauma, it is still like the way I like to define it is it is a shock to your system. So profound, because like there's always that element of this is not how I expected something to go. So a little t trauma can be something like
00:08:00
Speaker
If you find out that your spouse is having an affair, like you walk in on them having an affair, they're with someone else. Your life is not necessarily in jeopardy, but that is absolutely traumatic, right? Or it can be something like you come into work and you get fired on the spot. Um, something like that. So little T traumas to me, all it means is it's still very much traumatic to your system.
00:08:27
Speaker
but there's not necessarily the element of life or death. But here's another thing that I think is important to keep in mind. We call it big and little, and I almost don't like those words because big seems like it would have obviously a bigger impact on your system.
00:08:47
Speaker
So that in turn means that a little T trauma would have a smaller impact on your system and that's not necessarily true. Like walking in on your spouse having an affair absolutely flips your entire world upside down. So just because it's not a life or death situation doesn't mean, and so we would consider it like a little T trauma,
00:09:08
Speaker
It doesn't mean that it isn't life altering. It doesn't mean that it doesn't have profound impact on your life. Um, I don't necessarily want to even call it little T because that's, that's just not the way I look at it, right? It's just maybe lesser of the two on the scale of whether or not you were going to lose your life.
00:09:30
Speaker
But still even with, even with those little T traumas, I still think of them as a moment that you can point to that you can say this thing, this incident happened on this day. And you can recall like the moment that it happened. And it's very like clearing your mind. Like it's still kind of like a singular event.
00:09:53
Speaker
And what I want to talk about now is, is complex trauma.
Understanding Complex Trauma
00:09:59
Speaker
Um, which you may have heard see PTSD, which is complex PTSD. And that's still very different from the big T little T that I just talked about. So big T little T, again, it's in an event, like a singular event that you can name when it happened. And it's very, like, it has a lot of like clear boundaries around it. Complex trauma.
00:10:24
Speaker
is more things that happen over a long period of time. And we're talking about days to weeks to months to years to decades. And the way I like to describe it is if you think about physical trauma, if you fall and break your arm and the bone is like coming through the skin,
00:10:53
Speaker
You know that that is a big trauma. You're going to have to go to the ER. You're going to have to get like surgery to set the bone. You're going to have to have stitches. You're going to have to have physical therapy and a cast and like pain medicines and all these things. Like it's very easy to call that a physical trauma.
00:11:12
Speaker
Like it's very obvious. And again, like that's a really good example of a big T trauma because you can say exactly when it happened. Um, you know, exactly what the treatment for it was. Like that's very clearly defined, but complex trauma is usually like what I like to describe, like little paper cuts that happen over and over and over and over again. So these are like little emotional wounds that over time, like no one necessarily
00:11:41
Speaker
no one paper cut necessarily sends you to the hospital. So it doesn't look like trauma. It looks like a paper cut, but that is like, if you ever have a paper cut and you put like lemon juice on it, it is extremely painful. So it still causes a lot of pain, but it's not enough to say that this is a trauma that I need to go to the hospital for. And so, um, I was trying to think of an example of this besides just paper cuts and, and,
00:12:07
Speaker
This for some reason is what my brain came up with. So a few years ago I was chewing and I bit the inside of my mouth. Is that not like the most frustrating thing in the world? It's like somehow I forgot how to eat and I bit myself.
00:12:24
Speaker
and so that is so painful and so of course it like it gets sore like I chomped on it like it was bleeding a little bit it was sore but it wasn't something I needed to go to the doctor for right so it's like a small paper cut it's painful but I wouldn't have necessarily called that like a trauma I need to go get stitches or anything right but what happens is as your mouth is healing
00:12:49
Speaker
It swells a little bit, right? And so what's more likely to happen, I'm more likely to bite down on it again the next day because it's a little bit swollen. So the next day I do it again and I'm just like, oh my gosh, this is so painful. But again,
00:13:05
Speaker
I've bit down on it again. I've kind of like reopened that wound, but it's still not something that I need to go to the hospital for. Like I still need stitches. And so I'm just careful for a couple of days and it kind of heals. And then a month later I do it again and it's like this same cycle. It happened to the point that like,
00:13:25
Speaker
My body created scar tissue in that one spot that I always bite my cheek to the point that I didn't realize it, but all of a sudden I had like a knot in my mouth.
00:13:39
Speaker
And this happened like earlier this year. I remember thinking like, I know that that's where I always bite my cheek, but could I really have like a knot, like a permanent knot in my mouth from how many times I've bit my cheek? Like that's slightly embarrassing that I have done this so many times. But it got to the point that I was actually worried because I was like, oh my gosh, like what if this is not, not just like a knot. What if this is, I kind of convinced myself that I had a tumor in my mouth.
00:14:04
Speaker
So when I was at my dentist for my annual exam, like a month later, after I started paying attention to it, because I had really fixated on it for a little bit, if I'm being honest. So when I went to the dentist for my cleaning, I was like, hey, will you take a look at this in my mouth? I'm not sure. Do I have cancer?
00:14:21
Speaker
And the dentist took one look at it and he was like, do you bite your cheek there? And I was like, yes. And he was like, yeah, not a tumor. He was like, that's classic trauma. And that's literally his words. He said, that's classic trauma. Like he could look at it and tell that, and he said, basically, you know, your body creates scar tissue because, and this is so interesting and this is why this is such a good example to me, my body,
00:14:44
Speaker
got used to these little paper cuts over time so it figured out a way to protect me better by creating tissue there that is tougher like scar tissue is tougher so that if I bite down on it like inevitably when I do this again like I'm better protected because that little spot on my cheek is actually like a little bit thicker now like the tissue there is a little bit thicker
00:15:10
Speaker
So that is the perfect example of what a trauma response is. You have all of these little paper cuts or these little bites that aren't big enough trauma that you need, like it's not a big T trauma.
00:15:26
Speaker
But over time, your body starts to anticipate, okay, this is going to continue to happen because it's happened so many times at this point, I need to find a way to protect myself from it so that I'm better prepared if it happens again. And that my friends is what a trauma response is.
00:15:42
Speaker
if you have experienced an emotional or physical trauma that has happened multiple times over many years, you develop things that help protect you against it better. And like the thing about my cheek, like I cannot name a specific, like I don't remember the day I first bit it. I don't remember the second time I bit it. Like it wasn't
00:16:06
Speaker
Big enough in my mind that I logged it in a way that it was like I remember on May 13th 2019 I bit my cheek for the first time like I have no idea When the first time because it was again like a small thing
00:16:19
Speaker
And so I can't tell you exactly when these traumas has happened. And so I think that that's for some people, what makes it really hard to call these little things that happen over time. Like it's hard for them to call it trauma because like, if you look at one singular incident, it might not seem like it's big enough to qualify as trauma, but
00:16:43
Speaker
over a span of time, if my body has rearranged my tissue and like created a way to protect me from it, there is evidence of long-term trauma. So even if like I look at one singular day where I bit my cheek, I'm not saying that that was big enough to call it like a trauma. My body is showing you evidence that there is long-term trauma here.
Trauma Responses as Adaptive Behaviors
00:17:05
Speaker
And so for so many people, they become aware of some things in life
00:17:12
Speaker
like our trauma responses. We become aware that we have developed coping skills to protect ourselves in ways, but we realize that they are preventing other good things in our lives. And I'll get into that in a second. But a lot of times people are more aware of their trauma response, even if they're not calling it a trauma response, they're calling it like an adaptive behavior.
00:17:37
Speaker
They're more aware of their behavior now than they are of all these little traumas that led up to it. And so I always say like on my intake form for my new clients, I have a question like on the little questionnaire and it says, um,
00:17:55
Speaker
Have you ever lived through a trauma? And I always tell people, fill that out as much or as little as you feel comfortable. We don't have to go into it. You can tell me about that whenever you get ready to. So skip that question if you don't feel comfortable with it. But there are so many people that put none. Not I'll tell you later or something like that. Even when they come in for their first session, they'll say, no, I don't have a history of trauma.
00:18:20
Speaker
Because people tend to, when they think about that question phrased that way, they think about, compared to what I see on TV or compared to what I hear other people go through, have I lived through something that bad? No. So their answer to have they survived a trauma is no.
00:18:36
Speaker
But if you phrase the question, what's the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to you? People only start to compare their experience with their other experiences, and almost everybody has an answer to that. So it could be something that if they compared it to somebody else, they would say, mine isn't really trauma. But I say all the time trauma is not a competition, right?
00:18:59
Speaker
And so for some people, if I ask the question, what's the most traumatic thing that's ever happened to you? They might say, well, when I was 15 years old, I tripped on stage in front of the entire school and got bullied for it for the, like the rest of the year. Like kids make, made fun of me for the rest of the year. And if that's the most traumatic thing that's ever happened to you, it makes a huge impact on you, right? Like,
00:19:24
Speaker
That would make a huge impact on anybody because your peers, your peer group is so important at that age, right? But I'm saying all of this to point out that sometimes trauma can be really hard to name. Because if it's not like clear cut, like a big tiered little tiered trauma. So I want to share a little bit about the majority of what I see in my practice, I would say about
00:19:52
Speaker
I would say about 80% of my clients have a history of trauma. And again, that's relative, right? And of those 80%, I would say, I don't even know what percentage, probably another 80% have no real big T, little T trauma where it was one isolated event.
00:20:15
Speaker
the majority of people, it is a pattern of emotional paper cuts throughout their entire childhood and adolescence that accumulated and taught them things about themselves that resulted in some kind of trauma response. And they have a really hard time even wanting to go back to childhood because a lot of them would describe their childhood as relatively
00:20:45
Speaker
okay-ish. They'll say, you know, I had parents that loved me and did their best. And to explore those things sometimes can feel like you're portraying your parents in a lot of ways if you know that their intentions weren't necessarily like malicious. But it doesn't matter like the accumulation of the small paper cuts over time
00:21:08
Speaker
changed who you are and changed who you, how you thought about yourself and changed how you relate to others. And it definitely caused you to create coping skills to help protect you from ever feeling that kind of pain again. And that to me is what CPTSD is like complex trauma. And I think a lot more people would be able to relate to this and say like, Oh yeah, I do have some of that.
00:21:35
Speaker
if we would normalize it to say, it doesn't mean that you're having flashbacks necessarily. It doesn't mean that you're having, um, like some of the symptoms that we normally think about with PTSD, because again, you're thinking about people, um, like veterans that have a hard time on fourth of July. Like that's a PTSD response. If you're having flashbacks, if you're having nightmares, like some of those more think more like tangible things that you can name. Um, if you have complex trauma, it's more a matter of,
00:22:03
Speaker
It's been emotional and relational paper cuts along the way. And the trauma response has a lot more to do with how you view relationships, how you function in relationships, and some like unhealthy coping skills at some point. So what does that actually look like in real life? So I wanna give some examples. So I have some clients that had
00:22:33
Speaker
emotionally and physically abusive parents. And this is going to be on the more extreme end where there these are not small paper cuts. This is actual child abuse, but it's it's consistent over time. Like it's not
00:22:54
Speaker
one time my dad came home and beat me and I can clearly remember this one time. Most of the time it's more my dad was constantly abusive and it's hard to remember one event in particular, like maybe a couple of like the
00:23:15
Speaker
the really more traumatic ones stick out to you. Like you can remember, I definitely remember this day. But it's very fuzzy and sometimes when you're trying to remember it, you're like, I can't really remember all the details of it. I can't really remember if it was just one time or if it was multiple times. And again, that's because it,
00:23:33
Speaker
Like if I asked someone like when did your dad hit you they would say pick a random Tuesday and it was probably happening, you know, like it wasn't Sometimes they even haven't have a hard time recalling Was it when I was in seventh grade or did it start when I was in fourth grade? I don't really remember when it started or when it stopped. It was just like the pattern of behavior in our house and so I'm thinking of
00:23:56
Speaker
like multiple clients come to mind when I share this. So please don't think that I'm like sharing one person's story. Like this is pretty consistent across the board.
00:24:05
Speaker
What I have found is that for a lot of women who had abusive parents, not just a dad, absolutely can be a mom too, if you have an abusive parent, you learn how to protect yourself. So again, this is your body saying, okay, now this is a predictable behavior, wasn't a one-off thing. So I need to learn how to position myself and protect myself so that I can survive.
00:24:32
Speaker
So just like the scar tissue in my cheek, my body has learned to adapt to protect myself. So what I see a lot of women that have this kind of like history, a lot of times they learned how to avoid being home. And so they learn things like if I get involved in a lot of extracurricular activities at school, I don't have to be at home as much.
00:24:58
Speaker
Plus, my coaches and my teachers give me positive reinforcement. So it's almost like it fills in an emotional need, but it also is a defense mechanism because you don't have to be at home as much.
00:25:11
Speaker
A lot of people also learned to get a job as early as possible, again, so that you are out of the house, but also having your own money is a way to have independence and get yourself out of that situation as quickly as possible. What I've learned with women
00:25:33
Speaker
is that a lot of my clients that had really abusive parents, they develop into overachievers, incredibly successful women. They work these high stress jobs. They move up in their company really, really fast. They work really well under pressure because their home life was nothing but pressure, right? So they can handle these like really high, high pressure, high stress jobs. So they become things like,
00:25:58
Speaker
lawyers, they become things like doctors, like really successful careers, real estate agents. And a lot of times they end up in male-dominated careers too because they can handle this oppressive and cutthroat environment. They handle it really, really well.
00:26:18
Speaker
And again, like you also get praise for doing that. So when you're the top of your class in college or a law school or whatever it is, you get praise for that. So it also is like meeting a need, um, for like to be seen, to be known, to be heard, to be loved. Um, all the things that you weren't getting at home.
00:26:38
Speaker
It's like your system figures out I can get that need met and I can get myself to safety at the same time. So a lot of, again, a lot of the clients that I work with, they moved out at 16, 17 years old. They put themselves through college by, um, bartending at night or working 40 hours a week while getting themselves through school. They get these really like awesome jobs.
00:27:01
Speaker
but that is their trauma response. And so by the time they get to be in their thirties and forties, they realize how burned out they are and they're exhausted and they're anxious. And it's because so much of their system has been stuck in fight or flight mode for so long because you continue to put yourselves environments where you're having to survive, like these cutthroat corporate jobs, right? And so they get to a place that's saying like, okay, this is not working for me anymore because now they're starting to pay the price.
00:27:31
Speaker
like the physical price of your body being stuck in survival mode for so long. So it has an impact on your hormones, it has an impact on your sleep, it has impact on just like so many different physical symptoms and systems of the body.
Impact of Trauma on Present Behavior
00:27:44
Speaker
So you start to realize like, okay, I need help. And they don't realize at all that it has anything to do with their childhood trauma because they're just thinking, I'm stressed now and the present. And they don't realize that so much of the present in this world that they've created for themselves is in an environment that
00:28:01
Speaker
almost like mimics a lot of what they grew up in. But because of all these coping skills that they've developed, they are able to feel like they have more control over it. And so it's almost like we recreate an environment so that we can do it differently to feel safe. So if you're a kid, and you're in an abusive environment, you have absolutely no control,
00:28:23
Speaker
you recreate that environment so that this time you can have control because that feels really good to the system. But again, you're asking yourself to be stuck in a cycle of being in survival mode. Like it's so complicated. And so much of this that we do is subconscious, we're not even realizing
00:28:38
Speaker
how it's all tied together. But some of my biggest success stories as a therapist has been helping women work through this and they decide for themselves, I don't want any part of this anymore. I just want peace. I don't want to be in survival mode anymore. So they end up walking away from the careers that they've built and there's a lot of grief that comes with that and there's a lot of second guessing themselves because they're walking away from power and money and they're part of their identity, what they've built in these careers.
00:29:04
Speaker
But once they heal this trauma, they say, I don't want to be in these environments anymore. And I don't need to prove to myself anymore that I can control and survive it. I don't want any part of this anymore. So some of my best success stories has been women quitting their jobs and finding a slower, more peaceful life for themselves. And that is such a result of healing. Okay, so all of that was in an example of
00:29:32
Speaker
complex trauma that happened again over a long period of time, years and decades, and it's on the more extreme end of abusive, right? Like it's pretty clear that we can call that abuse. And there is absolutely a lot of that. On the other hand, I see a lot of women that are on maybe the less abusive end of that spectrum of complex trauma.
00:29:59
Speaker
And I want to give some examples of that too. One of the things that I see most are women who have terrible self-worth and terrible body image and confidence issues as adults because of years of this complex trauma. And so what's really, really hard about identifying this is it was often said with love,
00:30:29
Speaker
and concern, but the message was still really, really harmful. And so I can think of, again, like tons of my clients that have had this issue where for their 10th birthday, they were gifted a Weight Watchers membership.
00:30:50
Speaker
or they were gifted the Nutrisystem program. And so it's packaged as we love you and we're concerned for you and we're going to help you. But really the message they got is you're not good enough. Um, that you're worthless and that your value is in question because you're quote unquote underweight and the majority of the time they weren't at all. Like it's,
00:31:17
Speaker
moms and grandmothers projecting their own bad self body image onto their daughter. But y'all this happens all the time and it is so incredibly damaging because again these are teeny tiny paper cuts and they're like backhanded messages mixed with love and concern so it's hard to even call it toxic or abusive because even as a kid you tell yourself I know they love me and I know that they're just worried about me so I need to change myself.
00:31:47
Speaker
for them. And that's just so incredibly sad. And so what ends up happening is that we develop what we call negative core beliefs or core negative beliefs about yourself.
00:32:02
Speaker
And it stems from when you are given some kind of message, what do you internalize about that message about yourself? So I ask my questions all the time, like what is the I am or I am not statement that you were telling yourself in that moment? So if you're being gifted a Weight Watchers membership,
00:32:19
Speaker
you're hearing, I love you and I'm concerned for you, but what you usually tell yourself that I am or I am not is I'm not good enough or I am a failure. And those are the things that really, really get internalized that we have to work through in therapy. And here's the thing, I had someone who was not
00:32:39
Speaker
like fully embracing of mental health and trauma and kind of like one of those people that downsizes and minimizes people's experience a lot. I had this person say to me, well if that's what you consider trauma, then that means we all have experienced trauma.
00:32:56
Speaker
That means we're all walking around traumatized. If you're gonna say that these little paper cuts, if that's trauma, then we're all traumatized. And they meant it in a way of disproving me, but when they said that, I was like, yeah, exactly.
00:33:11
Speaker
We are all walking around as injured, traumatized people who have been through a lot of shit in our life. And we were not taught how to process it. Resources were not available. Like, yes, the majority of us, if we ask ourselves the question, what is the most traumatizing things that we have lived through, the majority of us will have an answer for that.
00:33:37
Speaker
And trauma is not a competition. So there is no need to compare how quote unquote bad your trauma is to make it deserving and worthy of healing and processing through it. And being able to connect the dots to know what has your trauma response been because of that. And that's like a point that I really want to drive home is that you don't have to quantify or qualify
00:34:06
Speaker
your trauma to be deserving of help. It doesn't it doesn't matter how small you think it was, you can still work through it. So the last thing that okay, yeah, I'm already at 30 minutes. And so I can already tell you this is going to be a two part one. So
00:34:22
Speaker
Yay, we're not done for this season because the last thing that I want to talk about now is what do some of those trauma responses look like? And so one that I just described is for some people, they become extremely like workaholic to try to, um, create an illusion of some kind of control over their life. But also that gives them, um, like the, the praise and the affirmation that they didn't get in a lot of ways in childhood.
00:34:50
Speaker
Some other trauma responses can be when you see people that walk away from relationships really, really easily, you know, those people that and a lot of us can relate to this of I'm going to leave you before you can leave me, or I'm going to hurt you before you can hurt me.
00:35:08
Speaker
or the opposite, it can be, I'm gonna stay way longer than I should because I still think I can fix you. So their trauma response might be, if I can just be good enough, this person will change. And that can absolutely be a trauma response. And again, like a lot of people would say that that's just like a personality trait or like they wouldn't necessarily relate it back to trauma. But 100% of the time, like you can explore
00:35:36
Speaker
Where did you get that message that if you were just, if you were better, they would treat you better, like 100% of the time you can make that connection.
00:35:45
Speaker
Another trauma response can be if you have kind of like a temper or you're a yeller. So a lot of people, if they felt like they weren't heard as a child, like they weren't believed or they didn't have a voice or they couldn't express themselves, they learn to yell in relationships because that's like their trauma response is if it doesn't matter how loud I have to get, I'm gonna make sure that I'm heard in this relationship.
00:36:12
Speaker
And it can even be something kind of like as mainstream and common as people who can't say no. So they get taken advantage of at work because people pile stuff on them because they don't know how to say no. And so it ends up being like stressed out and overwhelmed and burned out, but it's all because you never learned how to say no. So that can absolutely be a trauma response is I don't want to disappoint people and I don't want people to be mad at me.
00:36:40
Speaker
Um, so I say yes to everything. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to wrap up today's episode because we're definitely going to do you a part two on how do you treat this? Like, how do you work through this in therapy? But I'm going to end today by saying the majority of people listening to this probably related to some something I said.
00:37:03
Speaker
because we all have these like ill-adaptive coping skills that we've developed over time because we've been hurt. Like there aren't any people that haven't been hurt in life.
Healing Through Therapy
00:37:13
Speaker
And so no matter how big or small it doesn't matter.
00:37:18
Speaker
you can work through this in therapy and it can help you release some of that and help you heal some of these old wounds in a way that's going to help you live a happier and more authentic life that is less burdened down by other people's opinions and can really give you the freedom to know your more authentic self better as an adult. And one of the things that I always say is consistently we are trying to heal old wounds with present situations.
00:37:47
Speaker
And so if you're constantly feeling like you're fighting something in the present within yourself or within relationships, more than likely you're trying to heal an old wound and you can't do that. You can't heal the past and the present. You have to go back to the past to heal the past. And that's where trauma treatment comes in, is we're actually going to go to those original wounds and those original injuries.
00:38:11
Speaker
heal them in really cool and creative ways that not only helps to realign your nervous system for the physical things that your body held on to because of these traumas whether it's anxiety like a fight-or-flight response the shutdown response that a lot of people has like their freeze response so not only are you are you healing like the
00:38:34
Speaker
physical ways that trauma manifest, but the majority of it is healing the emotional pieces of it that we've developed that don't serve us well, like it helped us survive, but they don't serve us well anymore. Like those things like leaving relationships before you can get hurt. Because if you want a happy, healthy relationship, you have to have the confidence that there are gonna be some hard things that happen, but that you can withstand it.
00:39:03
Speaker
So that's it. That's everything that I have for today. I hope this was really helpful. I know that this is just like barely putting our toes in the water when it comes to trauma and everybody's experience is just so different. But I just really want to encourage you that if any of this resonated with you today to stop and think about like, huh, I wonder if those things that I never would have considered to be traumatic,
00:39:27
Speaker
I wonder if they actually had a deeper impact on me than I realized. And I wonder if my younger self was really way more impacted than I realized she was.
00:39:37
Speaker
And if that's the case, I wonder if you can give yourself the gift of healing so that you can figure out what would my life look like? What would my relationships look like? How would I feel about myself if this weren't a concern in my life anymore? If this were healed and I was able to leave this in the past so that it didn't impact my presence so much, I wonder what that life would look like.
00:40:00
Speaker
And that alone can be some really, really good motivation to reach out to a therapist and start this journey. It's a hard journey, but it's totally worth it. And in part two, that's what we're really going to dive into is now that we've identified what trauma is, how do we work through it? And what does that journey look like? So I will talk to you guys next week in part two of trauma drama, and we'll talk to you then.
00:40:30
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Outside of Session. Remember, while I am a licensed therapist, this podcast is not a substitute for individual therapy. The contents of this episode are for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you are having a mental health emergency, please dial 911 for immediate assistance or dial 988 for the suicide and crisis lifeline.