This second type of trauma (relational/lower-t trauma) happens to lesser or greater degrees, but it includes cases of abuse, neglect, and other family dysfunction. It could involve situations where there was an overall lack of unsafety or a lack of clarity and communication around important matters that set up a child to fail. It might include being raised in a home where a parent’s need was so big that they weren’t able to attend to their kiddos needs. It might involve growing up overshadowed by a sibling who was more attractive and popular or who suffered a crippling illness/injury that drained the family’s time, energy, and resources. Others experienced trauma growing up in a home where a parent demonstrated sudden and intense mood swings or suffered from depression or an addiction or where a parent’s attention and affection was inconsistent or intrusive. 

Some victims of trauma experienced sexual abuse inside the family or outside of the home by a neighbor or authority figure. It might also include growing up watching parents emotionally smother or tear each other apart or where there was a lot of yelling and criticism.  It could also involve growing up in a home where emotions and needs were unwelcomed, ignored, or discouraged.

Trauma can’t tell time. 

Unfortunately, the majority of adults experience significant trauma in their lifetime and it is one of the most common reasons people seek therapy. 

Even though the original trauma event or experiences are long over in terms of time passed, the accumulative toll it takes doesn’t know the passage of time. We may tell ourselves that it’s over. That the trauma is far behind us, and we can move on. But it’s not that simple—not when our nervous system has yet to fully absorb that it-is-over; that we survived and are going to be okay.

Trauma can leave us stuck in dysregulated threat response states.

Our nervous system unconsciously scans for and collects cues safety and danger. When difficult life events leave a person’s nervous system drowning in cues of threat, it has a hard time detecting and interpreting cues of safety—leaving us stuck under the influence of threat response states:

 Fight/Flight/Fawn/Freeze/Fold 

The original sense of threat doesn’t go away in our nervous system because we haven’t experienced the right amount and timely care and support to truly take in that the threat is passed and we are safe again. Thus, we unknowingly continue to go through life and relate to others out of ongoing threat response states. 

We may not be stuck in a threat response state every minute of every day, but it often doesn’t take much to get us there.  It’s similar to living with a raw nerve that even when slightly brushed can instantly turn on the self-protective threat response.

One minute we can feel relatively stable and okay. Then suddenly get triggered and instantly feel unsafe and become reactive— often without knowing why. Below our conscious awareness, events and experiences in the present start to remind us of a past threat. It could be something we see or a sound we hear. It might include someone’s facial expression or how they walk or the volume or tone in their voice. We might get triggered driving through a particular section of town or during a particular season of the year. Just about anything that even slightly reminds us of a past trauma can sound the alarm of danger (even if real danger doesn’t exist). Implicitly it can “seem” to us like something threatening  or devastating is happening or about to happen again. 

And then we react. Threat responses kick in when they don’t need to kick in. 

Sometimes we overreact in ways that are often way out of proportion to the present situation. Sometimes we underreact. We fear that something bad is about to happen and we don’t want to be present for it. So we shut down and disappear. We might still be somewhat functional, but we are no longer present. We are going through the motions, feeling indifferent or even depressed. Sometimes we want to react and say or do something, but we freeze up like a deer caught in a car’s headlights. We may even feel the urge to act out and find relief from feeling so dysregulated by over indulging in food, alcohol, drugs or just staying super busy.  

However we react, it mostly doesn’t feel safe or good to us in the long run—or to those around us. And it reinforces the underlying trauma.

We don’t merely remember trauma. We relive it.

It’s been said that that time heals all wounds. That’s not true when it comes to trauma. Trauma’s impact doesn’t wear a watch. Whether it happened just a few short months ago or many years have since past, trauma screams something bad has happened and it’s going to keep happening.  So stay on guard! The toll of trauma doesn’t automatically heal in time. Sadly, it continues to build, be held, and lived out in our bodies, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors—as something that is happening NOW! 

As we relive trauma’s impact, we are not available to experience safety, comfort, connection, or even the possibility that something different could happen in the here and now. When we get stuck in a dysregulated threat responses, the only kind of story we have access to experience is some version of the same overwhelming thing happening again, followed by either some form of escape and aggression, shut down or freeze. 

Aren’t you tired of reliving it that way? 

My desire to work with those who have a history of trauma was birthed out my own story. From before I could talk or consciously remember, I experienced a mix of shock and relational trauma. As I came to realize later in life how much it impacted and limited me, I began to notice the same was true for many of my clients. 

Most people’s stories have been written in the language of trauma (to one degree or another). I also firmly believe our stories can be rewritten in the language of safety, support, ease, and connection. We can’t undo the overwhelming scary things that happened to us or those we love. But whether it stems from being hit by a car, childhood sexual abuse, an EMS call that continues to gnaw at you or a shocking site no human being is prepared to see, or growing up feeling controlled or abandoned or emotionally unable to express yourself, we can change our relationship to our trauma today.

We don’t have to continue reliving and relating out of trauma’s impact—unknowingly fearing in small and big ways that an original threat will keep happening again. We can still spot danger when it truly exists and take steps to protect when necessary. And we can also truly know threat is over. That we survived. That we are safe. 

Under the right conditions, we can retune our nervous systems to spot and take in safety. In this present situation, with this person, we can experience something different. We can feel freer to trust and relax, and to begin to experience safer things available in the here now.

Watch this short clip from the movie Patch Adams as an example what can happen for traumatized person when another person supports him through the channel of imagination to experience safety and protection in the here and now.