A therapist’s journey from confusion to clarity.

Please be aware that this contains sensitive content that may be triggering for some.

The word trauma gets thrown around a lot. I hear people flippantly referring to events as traumatising, & they’re referencing (I can say confidently as I know these people well) small, silly things that did not cause a genuinely traumatic response. I find that this is a common problem. When awareness brings a topic under focus – such as trauma, depression or other mental health concerns for example, the more universally these things are known (which I believe to be a good thing) the more their associated words become over-used, therefore their real meaning can become trivialised (which I believe to be a bad thing). After all, how many times have we heard someone say “I’m so depressed” when in actuality they’re just having a bad, maybe even a very bad day? I know semantics are subjective, but words carry weight, so maybe we could be more mindful of how we use them.

The preconception of trauma – it’s the events

My understanding of trauma has been an evolution. Like many, I used to think of it as applying solely to significant, horrific life events such as sexual abuse, going to war, surviving a natural disaster or a fatal accident. I know many still see it this way.

Then I began my counselling training and 1 of my group gave a presentation of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). What I heard being described strongly resonated with what I had classed as a ‘breakdown’ some 8-10 years previous. I listened in a state of mild shock. I recall sheepishly questioning this when I went back into counselling months later. ‘Sheepishly’ because I felt I was being dramatic to even question having the condition which I had come to associate with war veterans and survivors of rape. But my warm and trusted therapist confirmed that what she had heard me present in our time together sounded like not even PTSD, but CPTSD (C for complex), despite the fact that I had determined the root cause to be so run of the mill for many. It explained a lot and whilst I don’t always like labels, having one helped me to make sense of things that had been troubling me for a good 18 years.

A change of perception – it’s your processing

As my training progressed, I continued to look inward. During my diploma, I suffered a highly significant loss. Actually over a period of months I endured several losses. When my tutor suggested that this trauma could enable me to work with the trauma of others (after having processed it myself), again I was blindsided. For me it was labelled as loss, grief, bereavement, abandonment, but I’d never framed it as “trauma” as again, doesn’t everyone go through this? Possibly not so much in so short a period of time, but still!

Understanding from experts – it’s in the body

And so, as is my way, I turned to books. Particularly those by Peter Levine and Bessel Van Der Kolk. I had thought at this point that trauma was the way you processed events – hence why 2 people could experience the same thing in such very different ways. But these wonderful authors taught me that trauma is in the body. That if we cannot process an emotion(s) in the here and now, we store it as trauma and as it is unresolved it is like an open wound with a plaster over it; it’s unhealed and therefore prone to being reopened at any point. I learnt how fragile trauma is, how delicately it needs to be handled and how easy it is to re-traumatise someone. I learnt about tolerance (the window of) and hypervigilance. I always describe the latter from my own experience, as being like a meerkat in the Kalahari Desert, constantly on the look-out for black-maned lions, cheetahs or leopards. That need to be always checking for danger and knowing how you’ll escape it should the need arise. It’s exhausting!

I then engaged in a brief online course geared towards releasing trauma. Again this drew focus to the body and how (in theory) simple tapping and pressing on different meridians and pressure points could release it. I wasn’t convinced, yet I did learn about Polyvagal Theory. Here’s my rather crude and simplified interpretation as not all will want the technical terminology and jargon. Developed by Dr.Stephen Porges it explains 3 states the ANS (autonomic nervous system) can be in – often shown by a traffic light style chart (red, amber and green).

In the amber there is threat of danger – many will know this by the term ‘going into fight or flight’. In fight we can go from frustrated to raging and may want to attack verbally, emotionally or physically. In flight we may go from concerned to blind panic the more activated or triggered we become, we will seek ways to escape the situation. Our blood pressure, heart rate and adrenaline will rise and our ability to relate and our digestion will decrease.

When we find ourselves in the green we are in a perceived state of safety. We are calmer, grounded connected to our environment and those in it, we can allow ourselves to be curious and open. Here our defensive responses decrease and we can see increases in our vitality and health along with our immune responses.

As I said, this is a crude summation for those only wanting a basic understanding (there are so many images online for those who are seeking more a more in-depth explanation). What I found helpful to know was what it is like to be in the red, amber or green. People with CPTSD may live for years in the red and only experience fleeting moments in the green. Whilst it’s all very subjective, I personally found it very validating to be able to see where I was sitting within this, and it helped me to make sense of how I felt and how I was relating to others. For example when in the red, of course my social circle was small and I didn’t go out much – there was a decrease in eye contact and social behaviour which was to be expected, had I have known!

A somatic approach

Following on from this is the stage where I currently find myself – although my journey is ongoing. Deciding that I wanted to be a counsellor specialising in trauma, I felt that it was essential to study further. (Please, if you have trauma and want to work with a therapist, do not assume because they have ticked a box saying they can work with it, that they have sufficient training. You have the right to ask what CPD (Continued Professional Development) training they have done in this field) and from my perspective they need to have done a lot to manage this safely and effectively.

For the last 2-3 years I have been engaged in trauma work. I came to the point in my own counselling journey, as a client, where talking was just not enough. And so my current training is a somatic (bodily) approach. It stands to reason in my logical, Capricorn mind that if we store it in our bodies, then we cannot talk our way out of it. We need to work with the body.

WE ALL HAVE TRAUMA. IT’S A PART OF BEING HUMAN!

There are also so many different types of trauma. there are the acute examples I spoke of earlier (sexual abuse, accidents, disasters, war, etc) but then there is also developmental trauma, generational, collective and existential, to name some. (I’ll leave you to seek definitions should you so choose.)

I now understand that it is the way our ANS responds to any perceived threat. And that threat can be to our life, our physical safety, or as I touched on earlier, these days it is our sense of self or our psychological safety that we can feel is threatened. What do I mean by that? It can be as commonplace as being talked about behind our back, being ridiculed by teachers, co-workers, employers etc. The threat is that the ridicule will destabilise the foundation of who we are. For example, if we think we are kind and gentle and we over hear colleagues talking about us saying we are mean, cold and thoughtless that can alter our sense of self in the eyes of others, which we may then internalise. If we get shamed by being ridiculed, for example, the next time we go to speak out, if the memory of the ridicule comes back (in our consciousness, or if our body recalls it) and we DON’T take action as a result, and instead repress our words, then this is an example of how trauma impacts our system and plays out again and again. We loop not being able to speak out stemming from the negative experience of ridicule.

I’ve learnt it’s all about the nervous system and that was programmed by your life events between the age of 0 – 7. At its core it’s about survival. The body wants to survive and it will respond (by going into fight, flight, freeze or flop) to any stimulus that gives a hint of threat to life or who we believe ourselves to be. I also now understand that the body wants to be in the green. That is our natural state, it feels like ‘coming home’ feeling relaxed, safe and secure and yet if we are struggling with trauma we can’t just get there by willing it to be so. As such, we will find ways to reach a similar feeling. It will be a different way for each of us. Some may reach for a glass of wine, for others food, sex, gambling, shopping, drugs – all may give that sense (if only for a moment) of restful satisfaction (the high) that we could achieve naturally if we could transform our trauma and be authentically in the green.

I’m not down with the newer concept held by some that it’s either Trauma, with a “big T” or trauma with a “little t”. From my perspective, it is all so very subjective. The events that led to my CPTSD would likely be deemed by these people as “little t” trauma, yet who are any of us to say what is significant and life-altering in another person’s life? Looking at it now with the benefit of hindsight, I can see clearly how these events re-triggered developmental trauma from my childhood, which all compounded as one almighty shit-show!! As an empath (this is an American term, Australians call us HSP’s Highly Sensitive People, in 80’s Britain it was just “God she’s highly strung/over sensitive!”) along with 20% of the population, I am more sensitive, therefore more emotional, and therefore more prone to experience things as traumatic. Empaths feel things more deeply, which isn’t to say others are cold, but we are more impacted, which I feel is a blessing and a curse. A positive for me now (and for all who can do the same) is that by learning to express my emotions as I feel them, I am allowing them to move through me and find completion. It is the inability to do this that leaves them stored in our bodies. In doing so, I am no longer adding to the trauma that is already stored in my system. How we can clear trauma (to at least some degree) is learning to understand our emotions and letting them come through our bodies. We cannot talk our way out of trauma, it needs to be a a meeting of mind and body.

A final thought

So please, don’t be scared of the word trauma. It’s as much a part of us as is joy or frustration. It is not the something terrible that happened to us, it is your specific bodily response, based on your own individual nervous system. A physiological, primitive response that you cannot help, driven by an imperative to keep you alive. How wonderful a system it is to look after us this way! If you’d like to work on any trauma you hold, to live more often in the green, then reach out. If not to me then to someone suitably qualified.

“In the process of healing trauma we . . . become completely human animals, capable of the totality of our natural abilities. We are fierce warriors, gentle nurturers, and everything in between.” (Waking the Tiger – Peter A Levine with Ann Frederick)