What is complex trauma?
We’ve all heard of trauma but what is Complex Trauma? Let’s starts with an example of physical trauma. If I mistakenly guide my poor little toe into the chair leg I will probably have a bruise to tell the story. This would result in a tissue injury to my toe that occurs suddenly either due to violence or accident. My physical body would be experiencing an overwhelm and ignite stress signals to support my needs. I would attend to my toe by holding it gently and applying soft pressure to any bleeding and eventually my toe would go on to heal itself.
Emotional trauma, on the other hand, can be in conjunction to physical trauma or also be experienced on it’s own. Emotional trauma is an overwhelm to the nervous system that ignites states of fight, flight, fawn or freeze and renders the individual feeling helpless and unsafe. Emotional trauma is quite the same in nature to physical trauma but there are a few details that can complicate the experience of emotional trauma.
There is often stigma attached to acknowledging, naming and giving space to our emotions that can complicate or delay the healing process. There might even be encouragement to push through feelings, avoid and just move on.
Emotional Trauma is not always easily recognizable. Most likely we wouldn’t ignore a bleeding toe but what happen when our metaphoric bleeding heart goes unseen or ignored time and time again?
This is complex trauma. Complex trauma is often a repeat invasive emotional experience in childhood (but not always) and is interpersonal in nature. Sexual & physical abuse, physical & emotional neglect, teasing or mocking, academic/performance pressure, religious indoctrination, feeling responsible for parents/siblings needs, living with a parent/sibling or caregiver who had unaddressed mental/emotional/medical/physical needs, sibling abuse & bullying are just a few examples of experiences that lead to complex trauma.
The reality is hurt and pain aren’t avoidable but when we have caregivers who know how to recognize nervous system hurt, pain & overwhelm they can help guide and teach us how to recover into regulated states building resiliency. This supports a secure attachment and increases our windows of tolerance leading to strong mental capacities. Even if the emotional overwhelm happened from someone we trusted, attempts at a genuine repair and the victims freedom to choose or not choose forgiveness in the relationship can help model a secure attachment. So the good news is we don’t have to be perfect but we do have a responsibility to be aware, attune and attend to emotional wounds self so we can be better teachers in relationship with children and more secure emotional partners.
What makes complex trauma “complex” is that there were no attempts at repair in the relationship, broken promises, demands for repair or forgiveness or denial the events ever occurred. This forced the growing body and brain to become resourceful in surviving (avoiding, isolating, people pleasing, perfection, mind-reading) chaotic environments and relationships and molding beliefs about future relationships: I can’t trust anyone or all people are gong to hurt me, based on these formative experiences.
For children, there is often a limited amount of choices. It’s not like you can move out and find another home or change the grown ups so the easiest place to direct your survival energy is on yourself. If I could only fix me then ___________ wouldn’t happen. Self blame, guilt and criticism result in perfectionism, people pleasing and procrastination. Teens fail to launch and become fearful of making mistakes and isolation becomes safe. If we fall into the pressures of performance as adults we overdo, overachieve, try to control the future/people from feeling discomfort & ADHD brain feels safer than calm or stillness and then we burn-out. Romantic relationships are scary AF and we struggle to know what trust or love feels likes.
For those that suffer with complex trauma it can feel like the world is really scary, unsafe and nothing can get better but I want you to know that it can. See, as a kid you had to neglect your sense of self and building your identity in order to survive the chaos. I know that for the most part, your brain knows what you need to do but that your body resists healing. Working with a therapist who is skilled in trauma informed methods you can attune and attend to the parts of you that never received repair. We work on that repair by recovering your sense of self. Healing complex trauma doesn’t mean you need more experts, it means you need yourself.
