What does it mean to experience trauma?
To experience trauma is to live through an experience that creates long-lasting pain or distress in our lives. There is no one size fits all definition of trauma. Things like witnessing violence, surviving assault, or being in an abusive relationship are common understandings of trauma, but it is actually much more expansive than that.
Many people do not even know they have experienced trauma until much, much later. In the moment, while uncomfortable, your mental defenses might put your concentration firmly onto survival that you aren’t able to recognize the trauma for what it was until you’re safe to unpack and explore what happened. Signs that you have experienced trauma can include:
- Feelings of shock, disbelief, denial
- Trouble concentrating
- Mood swings (anger, irritability, etc.)
- Impulse to withdraw from others
- Nagging feeling of guilt or shame
- Feeling disconnected from your life, as though you are just going through the motions
- Trouble sleeping
- Startling easily
- Frequent body aches + pains
- Fatigue
- Increased anxiety
Read: Big T vs Little T Trauma
What happens if we don’t address or unpack our trauma?
Even if we know we need to, addressing our trauma is incredibly difficult. Even with a therapist! It makes us feel vulnerable. Add on top of that, any sort of gaslighting you may have experienced after the trauma–from others or yourself–and we can start to feel extreme shame when thinking of our trauma. Gaslighting can sound like:
- “It wasn’t that bad.”
- “Other people have suffered worse.”
- “You’re being dramatic.”
- “Can’t you just move on?”
- “That sucks but don’t think you’re making too big of a deal out of it?”
- “That didn’t happen.”
- “I don’t believe it’s actually that bad.”
Gaslighting doesn’t just come from others–it often comes directly from ourselves. We don’t want to be weak or broken, so we tell ourselves that what we have experienced wasn’t that bad, that we have made it up, that if we were just stronger we’d get over it, etc. Deep down, we know it’s not true. The pain we are feeling is real and present and affecting our daily lives. But even if we know deep down that our pain needs to be dealt with and healed, part of us is likely afraid that if we bring up our trauma in therapy, our therapist will say things like this back to us–confirming our worst fears about our experience.
Read: 6 Things You Should Know Before Your First Therapy Appointment
How to bring up past trauma in your therapy session:
Tell your therapist about your fears:
You don’t have to dive into the deep end on your first try. Your trauma therapist is there to help you work through and heal your pain in whichever way is best for you. And you are the expert on yourself. If jumping right in is too much, talk to them about why that is first. You can say something like:
“There is something I’m struggling to move past. I know I need to face it to move forward, but I’m afraid to talk about it. I think I’m afraid I will be judged, or that you will think I’m overreacting.”
You don’t even have to say what it is you’re talking about. Let them know you have work you want to do, but that fears are blocking you from being able to actually do that work. Then, you and your trauma therapist can work together to make sure you feel comfortable and safe before you do anything else.
Write it down:
When we talk about a traumatic event, we can feel pulled back into the event itself–like we’re experiencing it all over again. That can make talking about it difficult. Instead of pressuring yourself to be composed and calm while explaining a traumatic experience, give yourself the space to feel your feelings freely without an audience. Sit down with a pen and paper, or a note app on your phone, a blank doc on your computer, etc. and make a few notes about what you want to talk about.
Then, in session, let your therapist know that speaking off the cuff in regards to your trauma is too difficult, but that you have written down a few notes. And if you move away from the notes and start to struggle, ask your therapist to remind you that you can refer back to your notes when you begin struggling to communicate.
Remember you can stop at any time:
There is no rule that says once you have started talking about something in therapy, you have to finish. If you start unpacking trauma and it becomes too much for you, remind yourself that you can stop. Tell your therapist that you appreciate the space they have provided to talk, but you’re not ready to discuss it any further.
We know that the experience of traumatic events may impact your living situation, relationships, health, and mental well-being. If you need help dealing with this, then we’re here to help. You can also get online counseling if you live in California, Colorado, and Texas.
Trauma work can be precarious and unpredictable, so your therapist will need a thorough grasp of how to lead you through it without causing harm. If you decide to do this in residential treatment, you’ll likely be paired with a therapist who specializes in trauma work—someone who truly gets the process and can lead you through it safely.
The important thing to remember is that you need your therapy to work for you, and that means that it’s okay to acknowledge it if you feel that you and your therapist aren’t the right fit. They’ll all have different styles, and one in particular may feel good to you while others don’t. Don’t give up—just talk to them directly about it, if you feel comfortable, and if you don’t, try reaching out to someone else on your treatment team (perhaps a psychiatrist or your admissions counselor) to see if there are ways that you can switch things up. You may feel more comfortable sharing with someone of the same gender, or with someone who has a particular background—like women’s issues, or drug and alcohol treatment—and it’s more than okay to be open about that.
Safety and Stabilization
Trauma work begins with a period of safety and stabilization. Ultimately, your therapist’s goal is to make sure that you understand that safety is the single most important factor in each of your sessions. If a therapist were to begin without this period, they could risk retraumatizing you by asking you to relive traumatic memories you’re not yet ready to deal with—and that’s the exact opposite of what you want to do.
Even if you feel ready to talk about your trauma from the get-go, you and your therapist will need to do some work to make sure that you have adequate supports in place before you do. That might be a list of coping skills you can use if you feel triggered during sessions (or after them), and a network of family, friends, and outside resources you can reach out to for help in moments of crisis. They can also structure sessions in ways that protect you from unintentional retraumatization by asking you to manually step away from your trauma in moments of overwhelm. Because childhood trauma work can bring up feelings of shame and self-harm, your therapist will only guide you into the next phase of treatment when they’re sure that you’re ready—because above all else, their goal is to keep you safe.
Processing and Acknowledging Trauma
Once you and your therapist have established your sessions as a place of safety, there are a number of different ways your trauma work can take shape. If straightforward talk therapy works for you, take it and run with it, but if it doesn’t, that’s okay, too.
One alternative option is Somatic Experiencing Therapy (SE)—a holistic approach to treating trauma disorders that focuses on releasing the negative energy that lingers in your body after childhood trauma. SE stabilizes trauma victims by invoking a release of energy—as opposed to trying to connect specific past events to current behaviors. Notably, an SE session may not even approach the trauma directly—just the emotions and physical sensations it creates—and that means it’s an excellent alternative for those whose trauma triggers prevent them from approaching trauma with more traditional therapeutic methods.
Another option for addressing childhood trauma is by telling your story through writing. If you feel comfortable doing so, you and your therapist can work together to write your trauma history down as a way to acknowledge that it happened, an empowering experience in which you give yourself permission to come to your trauma honestly and with compassion. Then, you and your therapist can burn the document you write it down on—a literal act of moving on without it. For many, this is a moving, cathartic way to approach traumatic memories, one that gives them the space to tell their story through their eyes rather than the eyes of parents or friends or anyone else who may have tried to take control of the narrative. Interestingly, people who engage in this kind of trauma writing experience fewer illnesses (both physical and mental) after they’ve done so, highlighting its ability to alleviate deep-rooted pain.
There’s no “right” way to work through your trauma; only ways that make sense to you, and ways that don’t. Ultimately, you need a treatment plan that can expand or contract to meet your needs, and that’s why it’s important to find a treatment provider that offers a number of other options.
A Period of Reconnection
The third formal stage of childhood trauma treatment is one in which you’ll begin to imagine a future in which your trauma doesn’t define you or dictate the choices you make moving forward. We know, it’s a pretty big task, but rest assured that it doesn’t have to happen overnight. You can take as long as you need to get there—and you should. During this process, you’ll think about how you can reconnect with people you’ve lost contact with, or build new friendships entirely—friendships that don’t feel driven by your trauma. As an exercise, your therapist may ask you to vocalize what you want your future to look like: a way of saying, “This is what I want for myself” rather than, “This is what my trauma compels me to do.”
