Trauma Is More Than You Think It Is.
When we think about trauma and trauma disorders, we usually think about PTSD or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which has been the face of trauma since we began discussing the subject in a meaningful way. Over time, PTSD has become a household name but it is only part of the story of how trauma impacts people.
It is now believed that traumatic stress underlies so many of our current mental health diagnoses that in the future therapists will rule out traumatic stress before diagnosing anything else. Think about that for a minute. Trauma is such a common underlying factor in mental health struggles that it will be ruled out before anything else is done. That’s mind blowing!
More recently, we have also discovered more nuance in the experience of trauma and its impact. This includes things like big T versus little t traumas and CPTSD or Complex Post-Traumatic Stress disorder. This new information is opening up a world of insight to help folks who are recovering from traumatic stress. The only problem is, not enough people know about it.
This means that there are a lot of people walking around suffering with the impact of trauma who have no idea that’s what is going on. They think they are “defective” or “broken” since no one can seem to help them figure out how to manage their symptoms but in reality no one is treating the right thing.
So, how can you tell if what you’re experiencing is the impact of traumatic stress? To start, you need a traumatic event to trigger these symptoms but that might not mean what you think.
Let’s begin by discussing big T and little t traumas. Big T traumas are what you normally think about when you think about trauma: war, rape, murder, car jacking, etc. These are the life-threatening, horrible experiences that can trigger traditional PTSD symptoms.
But what about little t traumas? Those are actually much more common but not yet widely recognized. Little t traumas include things like emotional abuse, bullying, racial trauma, incarceration, or divorce. There are more examples but generally speaking, they are hurtful things that are not necessarily life threatening but leave an emotional impact or wound.
They’re things that we all experience at some point or another. However, if you haven’t been taught healthy coping or lack a positive support network, these things can be overwhelming. Furthermore, if you experience a lot of little t traumas back-to-back and are powerless to stop them, you might develop CPTSD, or Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is not recognized yet by the DSM (what mental health professionals use to diagnose) but is becoming widely recognized in the field of trauma recovery.
Traumatic events, whether big T or little t, will trigger a set of predictable symptoms that people experience in a variety of ways. These include…
Reliving the experience: this can be through visual or emotional flashbacks, nightmares, or repetition compulsion (compulsively choosing future situations that mimic your original trauma)
Hypervigilance: always looking for the next trauma to try and mitigate its impact. This can take the place of worry, obsessions, extreme control, perfectionism, or other rigidity.
Distress: survivors are understandably distressed about the world and what happened to them. Couple that with reliving and hypervigliance and their emotions are often out of control. This can include mood swings, extreme anxiety or depression, hopelessness, and negative feelings about themselves and others.
Avoidance: due to reliving the experience, the stress of hyper vigilance, and their emotional distress survivors will often make attempts to avoid or escape their pain. This avoidance can be through disassociation, compulsive behaviors like drug use or sex, or constant distractions.
Trauma has other symptoms but these are the main categories that I see in my practice. If you’ve had a traumatic event and are resonating with the symptoms I listed, chances are you’re experiencing the impact of traumatic stress and would benefit from trauma therapy. You don’t have to fully fit the criteria for PTSD to qualify for insurance coverage either. If your symptoms are negatively impacting your life in multiple ways, then chances are you will qualify. You can complete our new client inquiry to get started or contact us if you have questions or concerns.
The good news is, the symptoms of trauma are a set of learned behaviors we adapted to stay safe. They’ve outlived their usefulness but because they were learned, they can also be unlearned, and a new set of healthy, adaptive behaviors can be put in their place. A trauma-informed therapist can be super helpful in this process as well as self-help books and online groups of other folks recovering from trauma’s impact. There is hope. ♥️