Do I really need trauma therapy?
Is trauma therapy something I need?
I’ve been through hard stuff, but is it trauma?
One of the biggest questions or concerns that I hear from clients when I bring up trauma and trauma therapy is just this - does what I have been through “count” as trauma? Because many of us, especially women, are especially good at downplaying our own experience or pain, we can often normalize what we’ve been through as “not that bad” or “difficult, but not as bad as what he/she/they have gone through.” We readily compare our experience to those of others, dismissing our pain as invalid or unworthy, and certainly not worth naming as trauma. But is that accurate?
I am going to give you a very easy way to consider whether therapy for trauma is something you might need or want, and that starts with understanding trauma. Per trauma expert and somatic practitioner, Kim Jeffs of Soma and Soul, trauma is anything that happens in one’s life that is too fast, too soon, or not on one’s terms. Let me explain these three qualifiers.
Trauma therapy can help when something happens too fast
Recently, I took dinner to friends who recently had a baby. They are overjoyed to be new parents, and I loved seeing how bright their faces were as they showed me their new family member. But as the dad described baby’s birth, I watched his eyes go wide, and it was clear that he was still making sense of how a routine prenatal exam at 3:00 PM turned into being a father by 5:30 PM, something that happened “too fast” for his brain to comprehend. Within a 2 hour period, the couple’s lives had shifted dramatically, and though the outcome was, of course, favorable (a healthy baby and mother), the speed at which the birth happened could be considered, for some, a trauma. (But trauma is in the eye of the beholder - more on that soon.)
When something shifts our experience of the world at a pace that is too fast for the brain to keep up, this is considered trauma. We can feel disrupted, confused, or simply like we’re just not “keeping up” with the facts at hand. Trauma that falls into the “too fast” category can evoke the phrase, “my head was spinning,” or one might feel that they were “fast forwarded” to a new stage or reality that they’re, perhaps, not quite ready for. As in the case of this example, a warp speed transition into parenthood, though longed for, happened at a speed that could be considered traumatic.
When something happens too soon, trauma therapy can help
If something happened to you sooner in life than it should, it might make you feel trauma
The following story is fiction, but it is a mosaic compilation of different people’s stories, and I think it will show you how trauma can be something that occurs when it is too soon for the person going through it.
Mary grew up with a loving family and had deep relationships with her two younger siblings. However, when her mom suffered a mental health crisis when she was ten years old, Mary’s world was turned upside down. Though she knew that her mom was getting the help that she needed and stable and well cared for, Mary instantly felt hugely responsible for her younger siblings, caring for them in evenings so that her dad could attend to her mom, and waking them up in the mornings for school.
Had this happened when Mary was older or more independent, perhaps the circumstances would change, but at 10 years old, Mary felt too responsible for the well-being of her siblings. Mary’s capacity for handling this was low, and she felt scared, overwhelmed, and on edge about wanting to help her family. What she had gone through had simply happened too soon, from a trauma perspective, forcing Mary to act in a way that was beyond what her developmental stage in life.
Trauma therapy for something “not on my terms”
This may be the definition of trauma with which people are most familiar, as this accounts for traumas related to deliberate violations of one’s boundaries such as in the case of a sexual assault or a time in which perhaps having a choice seemed absent. Being trauma-informed is all about returning agency and choice to others, essentially giving space for someone to set the terms of what is happening around them. When you can control the terms of something, you feel safer, more secure, and more at ease.
A recent example of a collective trauma that was “not on my terms” would be the global COVID-19 pandemic, as it created in our daily lives a series of things that were not on the terms many would have chosen, including schooling structures (online when schools closed), separation from others due to virus exposures or illness, and being in situations in which masks were or were not required. Though I have not taken a poll, I imagine that the popular opinion would be that it was not on anyone’s terms to welcome into their lives the terror, disruption, and chaos that was associated with living through a pandemic. Though many of us were able to, ultimately, adapt our terms to suit the reality of living in a global pandemic, the initial disruption to our perception of how things “should” be was very much not on our terms.
In trauma therapy, the client is continually encouraged by the therapist to make choices that empower them to set the “rules of engagement.” Trauma therapy returns the set of terms to the client, and the client has room to adjust and edit these terms as she sees fit and as brings her safety and comfort.
So is what I’m feeling trauma?
One last crucial piece of info to consider if you’re wondering about trauma therapy. What may be traumatic to one person does not mean that same thing will be traumatic to the next person. While there are likely many things in life that we could agree most people would consider traumatic, we all have different thresholds for what we personally consider as “too fast, too soon, or not on my terms.” By taking the time to consider what’s going on in your life and how it relates to the concept of “too fast, too soon, or not on my terms” you may have a clearer window into whether or not trauma therapy could benefit you.
About The Author
Leah Rockwell, LPC, LCPC is a mother and licensed professional counselor in Pennsylvania and Maryland. She provides online counseling for women struggling with the demands and burnout of motherhood. She is passionate about helping moms navigate the overwhelm associated with postpartum emotions, identity exploration, and career or creative dreams that feel beyond their reach. Leah is a respected expert and frequent contributor to wellness media outlets such as Women’s Health, Glamour, Livestrong, Bustle, Pop Sugar, and Entrepreneur to name a few.
