BUT I DON'T HAVE TRAUMA

Have you ever looked at people who went through horrific abuse, lost parents in horrific ways, looked at wars and thought, There’s no way I have trauma. My childhood wasn’t that bad. My parents love me, they buy me things, they put a roof over my head. It was a different time back then…

Trauma is not simply what happened to you. Trauma is the emotional and psychological response to an event or experience that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope, leaving them feeling unsafe, powerless, or deeply distressed.

And sometimes, what happened to you can be so normalised that you don’t even recognise it as something that could have affected you. How many times in childhood did you feel alone with your feelings? How often did you feel you just had to swallow your tears? You couldn’t express your anger?

Constant misattunement, being told to be grateful and many other common ways of being misattuned can and do cause trauma.

Relational trauma.

Your attachment figure is supposed to be reflective of your experience and anchor you through difficulty.

When you stub your toe and your parent acknowledges you with a tender look or a hug.

When you look upset and your parent notices this and offers support.

When you are frightened and your parent helps you feel safe.

When you are angry and they help you understand and process what you are feeling.

When you are overwhelmed and they help you regulate rather than making you feel ashamed for having those emotions.

When you make a mistake and they help you repair rather than shaming you.

When you are excited about something and they share in your excitement.

When you are confused and they help you make sense of what you are experiencing.

When you are scared and they don't dismiss the fear, but help you feel capable of handling it.

When you are angry with them and the relationship remains safe.

These moments might seem small, but they teach a child something profound: My experience is real. My feelings make sense. I can bring what is happening inside of me to another person, and I will still be safe!!!!

Without this, there is no mirror.

There is no safe holding in the nervous system of another that is supposed to give you the voice that remains with you through adulthood; the voice that validates your upset and anger when you're hurt as an adult.

This can become deeply traumatising, and it can be so hard for individuals to recognise this.

Because how do you recognise something as abnormal when it was your normal?

Parents certainly aren't pointing out that this is trauma and usually neither are the friends and surrounding people. Because we are drawn to people with trauma like magnets, every time we look in the mirror, we see what we believe to be normal.

I keep coming back to this analogy of a bear surrounded by tigers that I often think about and mention to clients.

Every time he looks around, he's convinced he's a tiger.

He's spent his whole life surrounded by tigers. He's been told that he is one. He's been taught how to behave like one. He's been told that what he feels is normal for a tiger.

So when he looks in a mirror, he starts to wonder.

But he has to keep looking, trying to make sense of this.

Knowing something is wrong but not knowing what it is.

Then he sees another bear.

And this feels confusing.

Maybe he's imagining things.

Maybe the other bear is wearing a disguise too.

Maybe the bear is just like him, pretending to be a tiger.

Then he sees a family.

Bears together.

And maybe, slowly, it starts to feel possible that he is a bear too.

But he doesn't feel like himself around all of the tigers. And when he's the only bear in the group, he finds it almost impossible to recognise himself.

Especially since the tigers have been telling him he's a tiger his whole life.

And that he should be grateful.

After all, he could be with the mice.

At least you're not a mouse.

You have nothing to complain about.

Look how much worse it could be.

So the bear learns to question himself.

Maybe he's too sensitive.

Maybe he's ungrateful.

Maybe this is just what life is like.

Maybe everyone feels this way.

Our roars are normal.

And so are our stripes.

Until one day, he sees another bear.

And then another.

And another.

The more bears you see, the more you start to believe in your own experience.

You begin to realise that what you felt was real.

You begin to trust your inner wisdom.

You begin trusting yourself.

And perhaps the hardest part isn't always knowing that something hurt you.

Sometimes it's recognising that it mattered.

That you didn't need to have experienced the worst thing imaginable for something to have affected you.

You don't have to compare your pain to someone else's pain to know that it was painful.

If you recognise yourself in this, then feel free to reach out to me here.