“Trauma can include exposures and incidents that anyone would identify as overwhelming, such as physical or sexual assault, combat, major accidents, rape, domestic and community violence, child abuse, and terrorist attacks. It can also include exposures and incidents that are less easily identified, such as rejection, humiliation, neglect, abandonment, bullying and emotional abuse (especially when these occur repeatedly over the course of childhood).”
“Big T” and “Small t” traumas are all equally “traumatic”
Children experience trauma through commonplace, everyday experiences in their family of origin
In her book, It’s Not You It’s What Happened to You, Dr. Christine Courtois defines trauma as any event or experience (including witnessing) that is physically and/or psychologically overwhelming to the exposed individual. These events can also include the “normal,” commonplace events we all experience as we grow up, such as: divorce, moving or transitions in school (loss); having your first intimate dating relationship end (rejection); parents being mis-attuned to your emotional needs as a child (emotional neglect); being bullied, discriminated against, teased, or judged (humiliation); or growing up with a single or widowed parent (abandonment).
These types of everyday experiences are what therapists call “small t” traumas as they are so common that they are often unrecognized or of smaller impact on one’s mental health when compared to the classic Capital T or “Big T” Traumas” our society acknowledges (i.e. homicide, rape, domestic violence, etc.).
In Max’s experience, small t traumas, are often just as if not more “traumatic” to people. This ‘death by a thousand paper cuts’ impacts our our sense of safety, control, and our ability to trust or be vulnerable in relationships. To learn more about trauma, see my recommended reading and online resources list here.
How do traumatic experiences impact your physical and mental health?
What is PTSD and what are its symptoms?
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder only became recognized as a psychiatric disorder in 1980. It used to be referred to as ‘hysteria’ or ‘shell shock’ as an explanation for the behavior of military veterans’ psychological reactions to triggering stimuli following war or combat trauma. As discussed above in the section on Big T vs. Small t trauma, society needs to expand it’s understanding of what constitutes a “trauma.”
Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) or being raised by a mentally Ill or substance abusing caregiver is often more impactful that physical or sexual assault. All of these experience will evoke the below symptom clusters consistent with PTSD. While all survivors react differently, the three main symptom clusters of PTSD are:
Trauma (of any type) impacts the entire person: body, mind, soul and nervous system
Re-experiencing or Re-living the trauma psychologically: feeling like you are reliving the event through flashbacks, nightmares or intrusive thoughts, images or sensory experiences. This cluster is also referred to as “Intrusive symptoms” because they intrude on your present day experience, often out of the blue, without warning. People usually express feeling terror, overwhelm, disoriented and completely out of control when experiencing these symptoms. They feel like a kind of time warp to the traumatic past that can make daily functioning nearly impossible. It’s hard to think clearly, socialize or plan your day when you are unable to predict what might set these symptoms off.
Avoidance behaviors—including compulsions, obsessions and addictions—used to avoid any reminder, scenario or trigger associated to the original traumatic event(s). This can be conscious as in a driving, or airplane phobia but is often subconscious as in showing up late, procrastinating or abruptly moving in and out of relationships. Avoidance is the core, root problem in most anxiety disorders; which are all about finding ways to avoiding the potential for danger. To learn more take a social anxiety assessment by clicking here
Hyper vigilance, Hyper-arousal or an exaggerated startle response. This looks like jumpiness, feeling "on alert" all of the time or being ‘stuck in survival mode.’ This can present as paranoia, memory problems, or difficulty concentrating/focusing, a chronic sense of irritability or being prone to sudden rageful, angry outbursts. This often leads to difficulty sleeping.
What is Complex ptsd (c-ptsd) or Developmental trauma?
Complex PTSD (also referred to as C-PTSD or Developmental Trauma Disorder) is a more severe form of PTSD, that develops in response to chronic, recurrent, ever-present abuse/neglect and toxic stress experienced during childhood by a trusted attachment figure or caregiver that the child is dependent on to get basic needs met. This form of betrayal or neglect of (caregiving) duty what differentiates C-PTSD from single-incident PTSD.
Children are vulnerable by nature and only grow, develop and mature through life experience. Have you ever heard someone say “you’re just a product of your environment'?” When your childhood home environment and caregivers are chronically unsafe or abusive—like that children of alcoholics, personality disordered parents (i.e. Narcissistic abuse), domestic violence the child feels helpless, hopeless and unable to protect themselves. Because there is no frame of reference or ‘internal working model’ of self the child does not realize nor have the wherewithal to escape. In order to survive and cope with the ever present sense of danger, the human brain then “dissociates” from the present moment, creates an alternative reality and shifts into an “auto-pilot” or “survival mode.” This state is often described as living in a fog; being spacey, detached or ‘being so ADHD,’ etc. In reality, this state of being is a byproduct of the nervous system’s fight/flight/freeze/fawn response to a (perceived) threat to life.
Living in this type of terror and anguish stunts healthy identity formation, relational/social skills and creates an extremely negative view or sense of ‘self.’ Attachment theorist, John Bowlby states: “what can’t be communicated to the mother [during infancy/childhood], cannot be communicate to the self.” This means that if you’re very sense of self cannot devleop when your caregiver is unsafe, erratic or dysfuncitional. There is simply not enough resources to meet both the caregiver and child’s needs. Learn more about C-PTSD here and explore additional symptoms.
“It is the subjective experience of the objective events that constitutes the trauma…The more you believe you are endangered, the more traumatized you will be…Psychologically, the bottom line of trauma is overwhelming emotion and a feeling of utter helplessness. There may or may not be bodily injury, but psychological trauma is coupled with physiological upheaval that plays a leading role in the long-range effects.”