Trauma – it is actually a hidden epidemic

Trauma has become a bit of a dirty word. People are frightened of it. “I don’t have any trauma”, I hear time and time again from my clients. Everyone has trauma to one degree or another. I have broken it down into 4 different levels.

“Big T” trauma – sexual abuse, war zones, car crash, hurricane etc
“Little t 1 trauma” – developmental or relational trauma with huge impact.
“Little t 2 trauma” – developmental or relational trauma with smaller but significant impact
“Little t 3 trauma” – developmental or relational trauma which results in “hurt”.

For the “Little t” at all levels, it is a subject of the four Ss, safe, seen, secure and soothed not being experienced enough in childhood. For some this results in profoundly believable negative self beliefs that end up ruling the person’s adult life, for others it is a feeling that something just doesn’t feel right, or good. These negative beliefs cause a person to live in fear – even if they don’t realise they are in fear.

To varying degrees, these childhood wounds need to be anaesthatised, and this is where we have the varying levels of self-soothing and adapting, from the chronic heroin/meth/crack/alcohol/sex/gambling etc. user, right through anxiety, depression to the highly functioning house Mum or city worker on net a porter or adrenaline rushes respectively.

Anyone who reaches externally for something to make them feel better in that moment, is soothing a past pain or hurt. The sadness is that as a society we have come to see these “addictions” or “self-soothings” as acceptable and even the norm. Sometimes one is actually seen as “abnormal” or “weird” for not wanting to indulge in external pursuits of anaesthetizing!

The reality is that we are a nation of hurt and wounded beings, unable to connect with our true selves, reaching for external things to soothe that internal pain – and aspiring to a social norm that is not only inauthentic but also self-perpetuating, encouraging a life of disconnection.

What to do about this:

In order to live a life of connection and fulfilness we need first to understand that we are hurt. Then we need to face our pain and work through it. There is light at the end.

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