#008 - ’Little T’ Trauma and High Functioning Coping Mechanisms
This week I’ve been having another dive into learning about trauma.
I’ve revisited Mark Wolynn’s “It Didn’t Start With You – How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle”. The title is pretty punchy and self-explanatory, although I would say the content is somewhat more elusive – simply because the complexity of the subject matter.
There will never be a clear ‘step by step’ guide – or a theoretical framework that makes sense to everybody and applies to all situations. Just as much as the teachings need to be delivered well and with dedication – so too does the recipient need to be ready to hear, engage with them and apply them either in the form of personal reflection or as inspiration for behaviour change.
I like the saying “When the student is ready – the teacher appears”.
Among other teachers that have come my way on the subject matter this week are Dr. Gabor Mate – through one of my most followed podcasts, The Expanded Podcast. The episode is called “Trauma, Authenticity and Healing” and provided a potent reminder of the nuance and spectrum that ‘trauma’ entails.
People talk of this distinction between ‘Big T Trauma’ and ‘Little T Trauma’ – the idea being that when we hear the word ‘trauma’ we often think of the Big T version – death of a close family member, abandonment, abuse (whether physical or emotional), war, natural disasters, addiction or mental illness in the family, a severe accident… to name some examples of what could be ‘big t traumatic events’ in a person’s life that might cause PTSD or other psycho-emotional consequences.
‘Little T trauma’ are things that we might not think of as ‘traumatic’ – they might not be as easily pin-pointed and identified. They might be more cumulative in nature. It could be something like
being bullied at school,
not receiving physical affection from your parents,
not being able to talk about your feelings with your caregivers,
growing up in an environment with a lot of religious dogma that instilled a programming of shame
growing up in an environment that disadvantages you based on your gender, race, sexual orientation, physical ability…
… In fact, Gabor Mate goes so far (which isn’t actually that far) as to say that any way in which our needs are not being met in childhood can be a source of this more subtle form of trauma. And given that we live in isolated family units with parents often experiencing a range of socio-economic pressures – it’s no wonder that they may not have the capacity to be a consistently loving and present parent to their children. I like that Gabor Mate offers his personal reflection in this regard as well – owning up to the fact that he himself was not always able to show up as an emotionally attuned, loving father to his children.
He shares that his workaholism did at times take his attention away from fatherhood. He also shares that he believes the source of his workaholism lies in the fact that as a 1 year old growing up in a Jewish family under the Nazi occupation in Budapest – his mother gave him away to give him better chances of survival. Even though it makes perfect sense on a rational level – the mind of a 1 year old would not understand this and instead picks up the subconscious belief “I am unlovable”. Therefore, as an adult – Dr. Gabor Mate says he has developed this coping mechanism. On a subconscious level – the part of him that feels unlovable is saying “if only I work very hard and make all these achievements – I will prove my worthiness of being loved”.
Woah.
Who can relate to that?
*raising both hands*
This brings me to the second concept that I wanted to talk about. It is that of ‘High functioning coping mechanisms’. Workaholism is a perfect example of this. Our society tends to idolize a hard work ethic and professional achievement. Although I do believe there is a place for working in a dedicated way – I probably don’t need to spend much effort into convincing you that there’s a bit of an imbalance around this in modern day society. Burnout and the stress-induced health issues speak for themselves.
It can be difficult to identify a trauma response that is “high functioning” – that is not seen as ‘problematic’ by society’s standards. It can be difficult to identify that there is a wound that might need healing, because your adaptive mechanism sort of ‘works’ in its current environment. The problem, according to Dr. Mate (among many others…) is that it is our current form of society that is dysfunctional. To avoid going down the rabbit hole of talking about this for too long – I’ll just name a few buzzwords: isolation, addiction, emotional suppression, body-mind disconnection, overidentification with the masculine principle (energetically), disconnection from the natural world and from the cycles of nature.
So – part of the problem is that our adaptive mechanisms are well suited for the current environment.
However – I do believe that many of us are feeling the imbalance in our lives in one way or another. We are experiencing health issues, anxiety, tension, depression – or perhaps a feeling of disconnection from the people and the world around us. I believe most of us intuitively know when this is the case – when everything isn’t ‘quite right’ and that we are living our lives in some way from a wounded place.
I feel a beautiful sense of camaraderie thinking about this. Whether our traumas are ‘Big T’ or ‘Little T’ – whether our coping strategies or clearly dysfunctional or ‘high functioning’ – we are in the same boat altogether. We as individuals and as a collective benefit from bringing awareness towards our wounding – and finding ways of healing. Healing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We need each other for inspiration and for support.
A friend of mine sent me a link to this quiz this week, which I did and found highly informative and on-point about my main coping style. If you are curious, head on over and complete the quiz here:
https://samantha-rader.mykajabi.com/free-coping-styles-quiz
If the result resonates with you, I would love to hear what you make of it and your coping style – if you feel comfortable sharing!
Link to podcast episode: https://tobemagnetic.com/expanded-podcast/2021/216
Link to Mark Wolynn’s book (free PDF): https://www.d-pdf.com/book/4226/read
photo credit: Carl Jorgensen on Unsplashed
