What Counts as Trauma? (And Why Many People Don’t Recognize Their Own)
There is a lot of conflicting information about what officially counts as trauma and what doesn’t. This is made worse by people talking about big “T” and little “t” trauma. People often wonder if what they experienced was traumatic “enough”: was it violent enough, threatening enough, dramatic enough? This page explains what trauma actually is and why so many people don’t recognize their own experiences as traumatic.
Trauma isn’t defined by how extreme it looks
There is a misunderstanding that trauma must be extreme or severe. What makes an event traumatic is not violence, physical injury, or even threat to one’s life. Trauma is not defined by the events; it’s defined by its impact on the person experiencing the event. That is why two people can experience the exact same event but be affected differently by it. What makes an event traumatic is a lack of safety, a lack of escape or support, or the nervous system being flooded (overwhelmed) to the point of not being able to cope with it.
Trauma is about what the nervous system had to do to survive
When trauma occurs, the nervous system has to adapt in significant or extreme ways to cope. Some adaptations include:
◦ hypervigilance ◦ shutdown ◦ dissociation ◦ people-pleasing ◦ avoidance ◦ hyper-independence (not depending on others)
While we call these “symptoms,” another way to look at them is as evidence of what your nervous system had to do to keep you safe, to survive.
Why many people don’t recognize their own trauma
There are many reasons people don’t recognize their own trauma:
• It was their normal. If you don’t know it can be different or have nothing to compare it to, it is hard to know that it’s not something you should have to experience. • Some people were told by their caregivers that they were exaggerating or simply didn’t know better. Kids tend to believe the authority figures in their lives. • It wasn’t violent. Trauma doesn’t have to be violent, but many people believe it does. Severe neglect is often dismissed as not being “enough” to count as trauma, yet it is. • Some people have coped with the trauma by telling themselves it’s not as bad as it could be or “other people have it worse.” This can become a habit, keeping them from identifying that their experiences are indeed traumatic.
Trauma doesn’t require memory or conscious awareness
Some people believe they couldn’t have experienced trauma if they have no conscious memory of it. This sounds reasonable but misses some important context. Trauma is remembered in two very different ways. One way is as memories that can be recalled. However, when an individual is experiencing a traumatic event the brain’s memory center, the hippocampus, can go offline. This can result in confusing fragments of memories or no memories at all. The other way that traumatic memories are stored is in the body. The nervous system can hold on to these patterns outside conscious awareness. This is why a person might wonder why every time they see a man with a beard they start to feel panic even though they have no bad memories involving a bearded man. This also explains why trauma experienced even as a baby or toddler can affect a person throughout their life. Their nervous system remembers whether they have conscious memories or not.
Why doubt about trauma is so common
Many people have a lot of doubt about their own experiences being traumatic, and this makes a lot of sense. Doubt can be protective. Doubt keeps distance between you and the reality of what it means if you have experienced trauma. Understanding that what you experienced can be unsettling. It’s important to note that doubt does not mean you didn’t experience trauma.
Common features of traumatic environments:
Traumatic situations often include an ongoing emotional threat or chronic fear. These situations are often quite unpredictable. And often times, the environment is very coercive, depriving the person of the ability to choose for themselves. Worse, some environments set up false choices that cause people to blame themselves even though they had no true choice.
What trauma does not require can be surprising. Remember, it doesn’t require violence or physical injury. It doesn’t even require an intent to cause trauma. In the case of severe neglect, which is a form of trauma, the trauma results not from an intent to harm, but a failure to meet basic needs.