"Did I Really Experience Trauma? MayBE IT WASn'T That Bad" How And Why traumas of the self are inevitable

While it’s true that there are some experiences we can point to and say with confidence “that is trauma,” there is a whole class of early experiences shared by many (if not most) people that we tend to think is “normal” and “just life.” And in some ways maybe they are. Our parents - many of them deeply good people trying their best – had the impossible job of raising kids in a world where there isn’t much tolerance for, or a fully safe way to contain, the vibrant, grandiose, inquisitive, exploring, delighted, loving, compassionate, passionate, bold, assertive, anarchic, awe-struck, wise, open and utterly honest energy that is the essence of children in their natural state. 
 
Messages parents receive from all sides are that children have to be contained, their insights made to conform, their energy tamped down, forced to confront or be otherwise taught about “the real world.” They have to be made manageable, because schools, churches and communities demand it; and because the adults managing them are overwhelmed, ill-equipped, or unsupported.  Sometimes parents are so ill-equipped that the only way they know how to manage their children is through behavior we would call abuse. Sometimes the damage is obvious – and sometimes it is much more subtle and difficult to name: needs that go unaddressed because the capacity to perceive them and address them is so limited; restraints imposed and punishments meted out that even the children themselves learn to see as justified or “for your own good.” And in many cases those restraints or punishments are the best way to keep children safe in dangerous environments, or from even harsher judgements and consequences imposed by adults in other settings.
 
For the sake of argument, let’s call ALL of these experiences – that result in making children restrained, obedient, depressed, confused, dull, bored, incurious, rigid, highly sensitive, inhibited, anxious, or fearful; or that cause a child to react by becoming manipulative, oppositional, rageful, disruptive, or difficult — trauma. Yes, even those that cause a child to be precocious, preternaturally mature, organized, and managerial. And definitely those that cause a child to develop addictive behavior, act out sexually, or become violent. 
 
How does trauma result in us losing parts of ourselves? 
 
Childhood trauma of all kinds has a profound effect on our core identity.  If we think of trauma as someone or something in our environment sending us the message that a part of ourselves, our primary child nature, is unacceptable, or too foreign to our caregivers to be seen and acknowledged (because they never had permission to see it in themselves, either), we will quickly become complicit in trying to amputate and kill off the offending parts of the self. Just for good measure, we’ll also make sure that if that part accidentally surfaces, it is properly labeled as the confusing, disgusting, offensive, pathetic thing that we believe it is. Often, we don’t see it as a part of the self at all, but as something we only identify (and are repulsed, enraged or confused by) in others. 
 
We will also dissociate (numb or cut off) the fear and vulnerability that forced us to cut this part off in the first place, as well as the threat of judgement or pain, and the shame. And, of course, we will dissociate the deep, deep hurt that this part of us cannot be acknowledged, received, seen and loved. 
 
But we have still more work to do to protect ourselves. We must believe that the adults in our world are good. We must preserve, at all costs, our sense of the world as a place that makes complete sense. We must do more contortions within ourselves to make sure this conviction is firmly implanted in us. Even in those of us that rebel and see that the adults or larger culture is the problem, we still wrestle with the underlying conviction that we are “bad.” 
 
We may dissociate, not just parts of the self, and not just our fear, shame and hurt,  but our knowledge that our own parents were cruel, scary, neglectful, distracted, overwhelmed or otherwise unavailable. We make ourselves complicit in all of our trauma, to feel that we have some control. 
 
But though this may create a surface feeling of safety and control, inside we still preserve the original dissociated experiences of the self, of the hurt, and of overwhelming fear and vulnerability. We retain those experiences as implicit memories. We build walls around these memories so that we don’t have to be fully aware of them. Even if we know the associated feelings are there, we will seldom if ever willingly let ourselves feel them (and often we can’t if we try). They might be like specimens under glass - inert, drained of life—until, under high stress, those feelings surface, sometimes in an extreme form like a volcano, but more often in a sideways, disguised form, in behavior patterns, or in dreams… or as nameless anxiety, or self-loathing. We may project onto others not just the despised parts of ourselves but also the roles of those who judged, rebuked, abused, neglected, or failed to demonstrate care of us when we needed it most. When we react most strongly against another person or entity, it is almost always because of one of these projections. 
 
All the while, we hold tight to an inner secret belief that there is no one we can really trust with these vulnerable parts of ourselves – and again, to make sure we aren’t tempted to take the risk of showing them (and thus reenacting our original trauma of rejection), we label these parts of ourselves with the internalized message we received about them: that they are so awful no one would ever want to see them, and if they did, we’d be shunned. We may become highly skilled at masking these parts, with their complicated feelings, and presenting an impermeable façade to the world. We may even be dimly aware of something within that feels like a wall, a façade, a mask, a fog or a numbness that blocks our access to feelings or anything deeper when we do try to go inside. Or we may have addictions or compulsive behavior patterns that are designed in part, whether successfully or not, to wall off, numb out or otherwise contain these parts. These addictions and compulsions further distract us from what’s inside by masquerading as the true problem, rather than a symptom of it. 
 
In addition to struggles with our own mysterious and often compulsive behavior patterns that we may lack explanations for, our numbness and difficulty feeling “real,” and our intensely dysregulated emotional states --  and all the downstream effects of such struggles in achieving basic life goals --  the adults that we become may be aware, at times, of a desperate yearning for connection, even while we find that once in a relationship, our nervous systems seek the safety of disconnection, over and over again. 
 
This can become its own strange compulsive cycle: the push-pull of seeking, and then retreating from, true connection with another (and with ourselves), and the ever-present and ever-receding hope (and terror) that the other we connect to will be able to see and hold our most disavowed and maligned parts. 

Next post: How We Create Compensatory Structures To Make Up for Our Lost Parts -- and How We Can Begin to Get Them Back.