My understanding of trauma has shifted massively in the last couple of years. For a long time, I hadn’t considered that what I had experienced as both a child and a teenager was trauma (although looking back now of course it was), and I never imagined the power it’s had over my life since. But learning about trauma has been transformative. It’s a subject I’m now deeply invested in, fascinated by how it affects us and how we can heal from it.
When we hear the word trauma, most people will think of things like war, natural disasters or a severe car accident. These are a few of the “Big T” traumas. But trauma can also come from other distressing events in your life, such as long term emotional abuse, bullying or divorce. These are referred to as “Little t’ traumas and may harm you just as much as the big stuff. Though most people are not aware of it, their suffering can be the result of trauma, and trauma is much more common than we think.
There’s so much I want to write about this subject, but I also am very aware that I’m not a qualified therapist/psychologist, and everything I share is either from my own personal experience, or from books I’ve read and podcasts I’ve listened to. I’ll leave you with a few important things I’ve learnt that I think others will find useful.
A few things I've learnt about trauma:
Trauma is an emotional reaction to a stressful, frightening, or disturbing incident or series of events. Nearly everyone has faced some form of trauma in their lives.
When trauma isn’t processed, it lingers. And if trauma or ‘trapped’ emotions are ignored long enough they can end up affecting both our physical and mental wellbeing.
Trauma doesn’t just affect your mental health, but also affects our immune systems and can result in multiple medical problems, many of which have been difficult to explain and treat by western medicine such as fibromyalgia.
Even if the mind seems to ‘be over’ a certain situation or event, the body still remembers and keeps a record of what has happened. Recent studies reveal that stem cells can actually store your tissue’s past memories.
Bodyworkers believe that your fascia (the connective tissues in your body) can become blocked from traumatic events and trapped emotions. This is why body treatments such as Ayurvedic Yoga Massage can be used as a treatment for trauma, as it works at a body level.
Shame and secrecy are very common of trauma situations and people will try to go on with their lives as if nothing has happened but will unconsciously keep reacting to situations as if the trauma is still happening to them.
Trauma causes us to overreact to normal situations and we become over-sensitive and easily triggered – these behaviours most often show up in our intimate relationships.
It’s important to remember “This happened to me back then, but it’s not happening to me now.”
I could talk about this subject for days. I strongly feel we could alleviate so much human suffering if we became more aware of our past traumas and began to heal them.
I want to end with this message because it’s something I’ve personally battled with. It’s easy to compare what you’ve experienced to someone else’s trauma. “They suffered XYZ, so my trauma is nothing compared to that.” Everyone is affected differently by different experiences, and no one needs to validate what you went through. It’s not a competition for who has suffered the most. If you’ve had difficult experiences in the past and it negatively shows up in your life today, then your trauma is valid.
Yorumlar