Trauma Happens

Trauma happens when the mind and body become overwhelmed by adverse life experiences to such a degree that we can't properly process what has happened. This is easy to understand in cases like the untimely death of a loved one that leaves you stunned and grieving or a natural disaster that wipes out a whole town leaving its residents in utter shock. This is called "acute" trauma—it's intense, it happens suddenly and then it's over. "Chronic" trauma refers to a long string of painful events, like living in a war zone or being regularly bullied in junior high. 

Trauma is also differentiated by its severity. Events like an untimely death or natural disaster are often referred to as "big T traumas," and events like bullying are often called "small t traumas." The difference is essentially how much strain they put on the nervous system at any given moment. 

To explain this, let's pretend that we can gauge the strain trauma puts on a person's nervous system and we measure that strain in units of distress. Further imagine that a big T trauma causes between 50 and 100 units of distress and by comparison, little t traumas measure between 1 and 49 units of distress. (Remember, this is only an illustration.) So, for example, a man getting mugged in an alley might experience 55 units. A child losing her parent might experience 85 units. A person involved in a mass shooting could feel 100 units. All of these are big T traumas. 

In contrast, a boy getting punched at school might feel 40 units. Hearing her parents fight in the other room might cause a girl 30 units. And being called a "fag" in the locker room might cause a boy 15 units. These people experienced these events as small t traumas. 

Sounds pretty straight forward, right? But it's actually a bit more complicated than that. First of all, every person is different so one person's 20 unit small t trauma might be another person's 90 unit big T trauma. But there are also several additional variables that influence how adverse experiences affect us. Keep reading. 

So trauma can be big T or small t. It can also be acute (sudden and brief) or chronic (repeated and long-term). And it can be simple or complex. Simple trauma is when the pain results from a single type of abuse or injury. So if the trauma is from a single event or from a series of very similar events, it is referred to as simple trauma. Simple doesn't mean it's easy to get over, just that it is all the same type of pain. Complex refers to situations where a person experiences a variety of adverse experiences, usually including different kinds of chronic trauma and sometimes also acute trauma; it can include big T and small t events.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) results when the trauma a person has experienced gets stuck in their mind and body, persisting for months or years. They might keep reliving the experience. They might be unable to bounce back from painful emotions like fear, shame, anger or depression. They might become unable to focus, perform their work, or maintain relationships. PTSD can result from big T traumas and from chronic small t traumas. 

Complex trauma very often results in complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (cPTSD). To review, PTSD is when the symptoms caused by trauma continue for months or years. The nature of complex trauma is such that people experiencing it don't ever have a chance to heal from one set of traumatic experiences before they find themselves in the middle of more trauma. Sometimes the traumas are unrelated, like being bullied, having your parents divorce, moving houses and losing friends, and the death of a pet. For other people, complex trauma consists of a few types of ongoing pain, such as being regularly beaten by an addicted parent and also being repeatedly sexually abused by a single perpetrator. Almost without exception, people experiencing cPTSD should seek therapy from a trauma informed therapist.

The word "covert" means covered or hidden. Covert trauma refers to harmful messages that are hidden in people's words or actions that lead to shame and self-doubt and diminish trust in others. Examples include:

• having a parent blatantly favor a sibling over you in a way that leaves you feeling inadequate or unloved (think Cinderella)
• being regularly excluded from the activities of your peer group
• being exposed to criticism or ridicule about a trait you possess though the ridicule isn't directed at you (e.g., being black and hearing racial slurs, being gay and hearing homophobic comments)
• having your feelings and needs mocked or trivialized (e.g., "You're such a big baby!")
• being teased or the target of snark or sarcasm (e.g., "You're the fastest boy on the girls team!" "Please go slow, you know how much I love a  glacier." "You're really good at breaking things."
• being incapable of living up to the standards of a high-demand culture or religion (especially related to intensive service and sexual "purity")
• being a marginalized person living in a culture of privilege (e.g., being a low income student at a wealthy school, being a black or brown immigrant in a white neighborhood).

LGBTQ people who grow up in cis- and heteronormative religions and cultures experience non-stop covert trauma beginning the moment they realize they are other than straight or cisgender. In the best of circumstances, they receive support in getting out of the religion or culture quickly. In the worst of circumstances, they try to pass as cisgender or straight and internalize the negativity toward their nature. Most damaging of all is when they turn against themselves by agreeing with, upholding, and supporting the condemnation of their own hidden feelings and desires. This is a sort of religious Stockholm syndrome.

Covert trauma can be experienced without it even registering as traumatic. The messages sink into the subterranean depths of the unconscious, quietly corroding and slowly breaking down the Self through shame, fear, and hidden anger. The abuse of covert trauma happens inside our own minds and bodies. And without blatant physical or verbal attacks, it can be hard to identify what's happening because, on the outside, it doesn't look that bad. 

People have parts. We're all a collection of attitudes, abilities, moods, emotions, impulses and reactions. Some of these can be pretty contradictory—imagine a "devil" on one shoulder and an "angel" on the other while you're trying to decide whether to call in sick and go skiing with your friends. When we talk to ourselves, when we can't make up our minds, when we cuss ourselves out for a mistake, when we throw a childish tantrum, when we distract ourselves from doing something uncomfortable—all of these are our parts at work. 

In their healthiest form, parts provide us with a vast range of capacities and perspectives and allow us to show up appropriately in a wide variety of situations. It's really helpful to have a part that is great at parenting. But you need a very different part when it's time to be sexual with your lover. 

One of the ways our psyche helps us deal with trauma in any of its forms is to get our parts to take care of it for us. Dr. Richard Schwartz, the creator of Internal Family Systems (IFS), has described how our parts take on "burdens" to protect us from feeling the effects of our trauma and from ever experiencing anything like it in the future. He describes three types of parts: exiles, managers, and firefighters. 

Exiles are the parts who hold the burden of the trauma itself. They carry the memories of events, sensations and emotions and remember the negative beliefs the trauma taught us. Exiles are frozen in time at the age of the trauma, which means they are often young and lack the perspective we might have gained in the years since. 

Managers are the parts who are burdened with the responsibility of preventing the exiles from getting triggered, which would expose us all over again to the pain of our past trauma. They do this by either disciplining us to avoid situations where the trauma might be repeated, controlling other people or situations so that they don't trigger our trauma, or by numbing us so we can't feel anything reminiscent of the trauma. Managers tend to be avoidant, controlling, and disconnecting.

Firefighters are the parts that clean up the mess when a manager fails and an Exile gets triggered. They're called firefighters because they're activated immediately to douse painful emotions. Anything that turns off painful feelings can be used, including such disparate activities as using drugs, alcohol, sex, reckless behavior, and religious observance or rituals. Although prayer and meditation are less dangerous escapes than drinking and driving, they can still be used to repress our Exiles.

I recommend Dr. Schwartz's book, No Bad Parts as a good preparation for therapy.