Trauma is more common than you might think.
When you hear the word "trauma," what do you think of? If you're like most people, you probably imagine that people experience the effects of trauma after a plane crash, surviving a fire, a major car accident, or participating in military combat.
While it's true that all of those things can cause someone to experience trauma symptoms, but there are many other traumatic experiences which are more common in the general population that we don't always recognize as being traumatic.
In my 21 years (and counting) of sitting with trauma survivors, I’ve talked to many people who have survived house fires or military combat. Most often when I describe these experiences - which pretty objectively fit the definition of trauma - as potentially traumatic, the person sitting with me in the therapy room will say, "I don't really think of it as traumatic. I mean, so many people have been through much worse."
There is a reason why that statement is so interesting, which I'll explain in a minute, so bear with me.
There are many traumatic experiences which are more common to most of us than plane crashes, house fires and military combat. Some may be more common than others.
Have any of these things ever happened to you?
The loss of someone dear to you
Witnessing violence and feeling helpless to do anything about it
Any unwanted sexual touching
Being hit or hurt as punishment
Feeling unsafe in your home
Feeling unsafe in your community
Being afraid of being physically hurt by one of your family members
Being bullied in your family, at school or in your community
Feeling unloved, unwanted or rejected by your family
Being adopted
Feeling as if no matter what you do, you can’t live up to your family’s expectations
Immigrating from your home country
Having a parent who was sick, depressed or abusing substances
Growing up in a high-control religious group
Violence, trauma and abuse are common experiences in childhood
When it comes to sexual violence - my definition of sexual assault is ANY unwanted touching of your sexual body parts - or any touching of your private areas that you felt powerless to stop - it is so much more common than most people realize.
For example, one out of five women has experienced some kind of unwanted sexual touching. Look around. If you are female, and there are 4 women nearby, one of you has probably experienced unwanted sexual touching.
Most of us don't even identify many of these experiences as sexual assault because they happen so often to us and people we know that we think it's normal. But thinking it's normal doesn't mean you are unaffected by such experiences. By the way, if you're having trouble believing that statistic you can go here for reference. To understand more about childhood sexual abuse and sexual assault at any age, listen my Therapy Chat podcast episodes on the subject.
Speaking of violence, intimate partner violence is another common cause of trauma. Children who witness domestic violence in their homes often become adults who are in abusive relationships.
Intimate partner violence includes pushing and shoving; the larger, stronger or more aggressive partner using the threat of violence to intimidate and control the smaller or less aggressive partner; and can also include controlling one partner's whereabouts, isolating them from their friends and other sources of support.
Children often feel they need to intervene to protect one parent when there is domestic violence in the home. When children feel responsible for protecting adults, they are doing so to help themselves feel safe. If the adults are not safe the kids are not safe. You can find more information on intimate partner violence at this link.
I talked about a character from the show "Mad Men" and how he exhibits the symptoms of trauma but doesn't realize it in Episode 54 of my podcast. Listen here..
I talked about how children watch adults to find out if they are safe in this podcast episode..
Physical violence is another confusing experience which we often struggle to characterize as being traumatic. There are many ways children can experience physical violence in childhood under the umbrella of punishment.
I know several people in my personal life who were hit by their parents - with wooden spoons, hairbrushes, belts, brooms - and laughingly tell of running away from their parents or putting a book in their pants to avoid the pain. Ask any of these people if that was a traumatic experience and they will likely tell you that they deserved it because they were mischievous kids.
But children depend on their parents for love and protection. It is a very confusing message that the person you trust to keep you safe also hits you and hurts you to teach you to behave properly. That was common in the 1960's and before, but we now know hitting children does not make them behave better.
In fact, it often increases undesired behavior. It is hard to admit that your parent did something that harmed you, and since a child depends on their parent being benevolent in order to feel safe in the world, the child tells him/herself that s/he is the bad one. In reality, parents who used physical punishment often believed they were doing what was right, and certainly what was done to them, in most cases.
However, I have heard far too many stories of the parent hitting the child with an object until the object broke, or using a wooden spoon of just the right size and shape to hurt the most, for me to deny that sometimes the parent's anger was running the show in those situations. Listen to my podcast interview with Eric Greene of 1 Awesome Dad on peaceful parenting.
Another common but often overlooked experience which causes trauma is called Childhood Emotional Neglect. This term, which was coined by Dr. Jonice Webb, refers to experiences in childhood of not having your emotional needs met by the adults who took care of you. It could be because your parent grew up with their own emotional needs unmet, so they didn't know how to meet yours.
It could be because they were depressed, or affected by substance abuse, or chronically ill, or taking care of a family member who was chronically ill, or they may have been physically absent for a variety of reasons. Listen to my interviews with Dr. Jonice Webb on Childhood Emotional Neglect here.
Childhood Emotional Neglect is a type of attachment trauma. For more about attachment trauma (these episodes relate to adoption), listen to my podcast interview with Amy Sugeno here..
How does trauma make us feel?
I specialize in working with people who have experienced Childhood Emotional Neglect, sexual assault, witnessing domestic violence in childhood as well as physical abuse in childhood. In my practice we specialize in helping people who have unresolved pain from past abuse, pain and loss, including intergenational trauma.
I mentioned earlier in this article that it is interesting that people who have lived through house fires or military combat often say "I don't think of it as traumatic, because so many other people have been through much worse."
Guess what. My clients who have been physically, emotionally and sexually abused say the same thing. Another thing they often say is "it wasn't that bad because I had a roof over my head, I never went hungry and I had clean clothes to wear." It's great that your basic needs were met, but emotional needs are important too.
Trauma makes you think what you went through isn't that bad. But there is a part of you that knows that it was very hurtful. That part might be an inner voice that says "you deserved the abuse because you were a bad kid."
Now here is adult me responding to that. There is nothing you could have done as a child that warrants you being kicked, slapped, punched, whipped, hit with a hairbrush, forced to participate in sexual activity before you were old enough to understand what was happening, called stupid, told you were worthless, beaten with a broom - whatever it was. Children are small and powerless. The adults in their lives should not hurt them. And that voice inside that tells you your pain isn't real, or isn't worthy of being addressed (or maybe that you are too screwed up to be helped) is not accurate.
Okay, so I realize I have experienced trauma - now what?
Finding a therapist who understands the effects of trauma on child development and has specialized training in trauma recovery can make a huge difference. You can feel better than you believed possible.
The first step is understanding that your trauma is real, that it matters, and that you can feel better. Then the hard part comes - trusting a therapist to help you.
I know there are many caring and skilled trauma therapists out there who want to help. All of the clinicians on my team at the Baltimore Annapolis Center for Integrative Healing are skilled in trauma and attachment therapy. If you're in Maryland, we would love to talk about how we can work together to help you feel better.
Give us a call at 443-320-4034 or e-mail us at info@bahealing.com. You can also visit our website to learn about how we work with trauma using Somatic Experiencing, Brainspotting, Attachment Focused EMDR, DBT, IFS/Parts Work, Polyvagal Theory, Embodied Recovery and more.
If you are not in Maryland (or if you are and you don't want to work with us), you can find a therapist specializing in trauma through these resources:
Trauma Therapist Network (I created this resource to help people find trauma therapy)
National Child Traumatic Stress Network
ISSTD
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute