Is Trauma what Happens to us, or what Doesn’t Happen?
Photo by Fabrice Villard on Unsplash
Most people think that trauma is something big that happens to us.
Abuse, major disasters, situations that pose an obvious threat to our survival and cause major distress and upheaval, but few people understand the nuances of trauma, and that sometimes, trauma is the outcome of what didn’t happen for us, at a time where we needed it the most.
As children, we have three core needs:
The need to feel loved.
The need to feel safe.
The need for healthy boundaries.
When these core needs are not met, there can be a lasting imprint that leads us to develop coping strategies to meet those needs. An imprint that is internalised in the same way as what a larger traumatic event may be. Recognising that trauma is not what happens to us, but how we internalise what happens to us.
These imprints lead us to develop what we know as our personality, a set of patterns and behaviours that are oriented around survival, and ultimately lead to the suffering we all experience in our lives.
Here’s a little breakdown with some personal examples.
The need to feel unconditionally loved just as we are.
Feeling adored, special and enough in our authenticity. Being seen, heard, validated and worthy of receiving the approval of our caregivers without needing to meet their needs.
If we are not given love unconditionally, then we develop behaviours (maladaptive survival adaptations) to receive that love, or to compensate for the absence of it.
As a personal example, when I was young, anger was not allowed in my household. I grew to understand that in order to have the love and approval I needed, I had to silence my true feelings if they were not in alignment with what my parents expected of me, or if they were to disrupt the harmony in the home. My father was uncomfortable with conflict, and needed harmony in the home in order for him to feel safe. So my authenticity was shut down in order to meet his needs, and ultimately mine.The need to feel safe.
Physically, emotionally and psychologically. To grow and develop in a predictable, consistent environment, absent of violence or manipulation. What is also worth noting here is that a stressful environment, where caregivers are dysregulated, fearful or have difficulties managing their own emotional state, communicates to a child that there is a lack of safety.
When we do not feel emotionally, psychologically or physically safe then we develop survival adaptations to ensure that safety.
Though there was never any physical threat in my household, there was certainly an emotional one. Love was withdrawn when I did not behave the way my parents wanted me to. The behaviour of choice in my household was to inflict a sense of guilt or shame on me, when I did not meet expectations. As a result, I rebelled and created a fierce and false sense of independence that made it very difficult for me to let real love in.The need to have healthy boundaries.
To be given a safe container to grow ourselves in, loving limits from caregivers, choice and agency, to know our edges and to most importantly know that we have the right to assert those edges.
When we are not given healthy boundaries, then we develop survival adaptations to meet that need.
Though I was supported to be myself in many ways, I wasn’t given the gift of knowing that I had a right to my own feelings, body and needs or desires. I grew to have difficulty asserting my boundaries. Believed that what I wanted and needed didn’t matter. I was disconnected from my own inner knowing. Instead I learned that the key to my safety, love, approval and belonging in the world, was to give up my needs, and meet the needs of the other.
The outcome?
I carried all of these childhood imprints into my adult life and created dysfunctional relationships where I suppressed my own needs, voice and truth in order to please and appease others because this is what I had come to believe as necessary in order to feel safe in the world, and paid an enormous emotional, psychological and physical price as a result.
Sometimes the small and invisible traumas, the needs that are not met when we are young, are what lead to us make choices in our later years, that result in the bigger ones.
Healing involves doing the inner work required to meet these core needs, resolving the survival adaptations we developed in the absence of them, and then taking conscious and intentional steps towards making different choices in our lives.
It is not an overnight journey, but a deep dive, potently worthy pathway into the heart of you, that slowly facilitates the emergence of your most authentic and empowered self.
If you are feeling called to start this journey, book in for a free, casual 30 minute chat to find out more and see how I can support you.
Love Maraya x
