Trauma: Its Infiltration on Our Lives
Often when talking with clients, a variety of issues present themselves: a lack of healthy boundaries, difficulty with healthy relationships, difficulty with regulating their emotion, difficulty trusting others, and maladaptive coping skills, to name a few. What becomes apparent is the role of the client’s childhood, their caregivers, and how they learned to adapt and survive. Trauma is frequently thought of as events that occur; however, trauma is not the events themselves but the body’s response to those events. We often think of the big, one-off events such as witnessing violence, natural disasters, a car accident, or some kind of abuse that cause the most trauma, and while these events have the possibility to have such an effect on the body, trauma is also born and bred from the small, repeated events over time, especially if they are frequent, intense, and long-lasting. For example, aggressive, chaotic, harsh, and/or punitive environments, inconsistency in the home (child-rearing practices, emotional states, verbal cues, presence/absence of caregivers, etc.), and instability in the family (financially, emotionally, etc.) can all be traumatic.
The interconnectedness of emotional immaturity, boundaries, personality disorders, coping skills, attachment trauma, and other wounds are thus linked to varying degrees. Here are some definitions according to the American Psychological Association (APA) (2023):
- Emotional immaturity can be defined as “a tendency to express emotions without restraint or disproportionately to the situation”.
- Boundaries are “a psychological demarcation that protects the integrity of an individual or group or that helps the person or group set realistic limits on participation in a relationship or activity.”
- Personality refers to “the enduring configuration of characteristics and behavior that comprises an individual’s unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns.”
- Coping skills or coping strategies are “an action, a series of actions, or a thought process used in meeting a stressful or unpleasant situation or in modifying one’s reaction to such a situation.”
- Attachment refers to “the emotional bond between a human infant…and its parent figure or caregiver; it is developed as a step in establishing a feeling of security and demonstrated by calmness while in the parent’s or caregiver’s presence. Attachment also denotes the tendency to form such bonds with certain other individuals in infancy as well as the tendency in adulthood to seek emotionally supportive social relationships.”
When we experience trauma, particularly in childhood and related to caregivers and our immediate environments (home and school), the impacts can be long-lasting, even lifelong if left untreated. We can become less resistant to stress and illness and more at risk for substance abuse/misuse, incarceration, other mental and physical illnesses, and suicide. We can become easier targets for later abuses, misidentify red flags in relationships, have porous or rigid boundaries, lack emotional depth and language for our emotions, and have insecure attachments (preoccupied, avoidant, disorganized) and other attachment traumas. Moreover, the longer our traumas go untreated, the more they begin to look like personality disorders, or maladaptive coping strategies that once kept us safe and now no longer serve us.
There are many ways to work with trauma, and finding a mental health professional who is patient, knowledgeable, feels safe, and can guide us through these difficult and intense emotions and memories can be helpful in finding healing. As Gabor Mate states, “Trauma breeds in isolation; healing happens in community” (YouTube, 2015).
*Disclaimer: This is not meant to be exhaustive, and while these concepts can be interconnected, each person is different and unique. Working with a mental health professional can provide support, exploration, and personalized interventions based on each person’s needs.
References
American Psychological Association. (2023). APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association. https://dictionary.apa.org/emotional-immaturity
Herman, J. L. (1992/1997). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence – from domestic abuse to political terror. Basic Books.
YouTube. (2015). Trauma, Healing and The Brain: Community Learning Event, Dr. Gabor Mate. YouTube. Retrieved September 25, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3WzMpjtkrs.
Further Reading
My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem
Trauma and Recovery by Dr. Judith Herman
What Happened to You? by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry
It Didn’t Start with You by Mark Wolynn
No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz
Living Heavy Things Laura Khoudari
Dissociation Made Simple by Dr. Jamie Marich
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Healing Your Lost Inner Child by Robert Jackman
The Sexual Healing Journey by Wendy Maltz
The Tao of Fully Feeling by Pete Walker
Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker
The Complex PTSD Workbook by Dr. Arielle Schwartz
Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw
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