Heroism ~ the Upside of Trauma

wounded superhero(in)es and wonder(wo)men

The reason for evil in the world is that people are not able to tell their stories.

〰 Carl Gustav Jung 〰

photo © Jez Timms on Unsplash

The Trauma Response

Trauma is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering.

〰 Peter Levine 〰

“Trauma therapists are popping up everywhere like mushrooms these days. Everybody’s jumping on the bandwagon of trauma. If you ask me, I think it’s just a trend.”

When I heard these words in an interview on YouTube, I noticed an instinctive explosive reaction inside my inner world.

1st the respect I’d had for the speaker before he said these words plummeted like a lead weight. My internal Respect-Scale, which had been hovering at around 150, dropped to below 0.

2nd my inner Prejudice-Cart shot out of its usual parking lot and zoomed off at top speed to the location of the incident to update my assessment of the speaker.

3rd my inner Elder yelled at the top of her voice, ‘WHOAAA! WAIT, Wait, wait. Not so fast!’

My Prejudice-Cart came to a screeching halt and reversed into their parking slot. My Respect-Scale crept back up and hovered at ±13. Both run on automatic pilot, and I appreciate that.

They alerted me to the fact that I need/use/rely on only minute amounts of knowledge to form a judgement of a fellow human ~ a snippet of information can tip the balance one way or another.

While still marvelling at this insight, a second realisation hit me

〰 This Is A Trauma Response! 〰

If you carry trauma within your Consciousness, you must also have a personal survival response to protect this ancient wound. That’s why trauma triggers an instant reaction. It’s not just an emotional response. It involves all levels and faculties of Consciousness.

With all my remaining respect for the speaker of the opinion shared in said interview, I would agree that trauma is a trend, in the sense of a ‘turning of the tides’. But it’s not ‘just’ a trend.

Trauma is a massive trend because people are waking up to their trauma. In parallel with the groundbreaking development in trauma research and the growing number of trauma therapists over the past 50 years, our collective knowledge of trauma has exploded.

There is of course also the trend of calling everything ‘trauma’ from severe PTSD to watching your favourite football team lose a match.

When we read that “traumatic injury is the leading cause of death for children and adults up to the age of 44” ~ this refers to physical trauma = injuries as a result of violent incidents e.g. in military combat, on athletic fields, in motor vehicle accidents, terror attacks, and surgery.

In this wordcast we are focusing mainly on trauma which affects the psyche. The causation may or may not be physical.

[For further exploration of how to recognise trauma patterns, and healing suggestions, see my parallel substack Synchronosophy]

photo © Alexander Grey on Unsplash

The T-word

One important finding, which was not apparent when PTSD was first proposed as a diagnosis in 1980, is that it is relatively common.

〰 Matthew Friedman 〰

Trauma defines the zeitgeist of the twenty-first century. The term itself, as used today in the ‘professional’ sense, developed from trauma via shell-shock and battle fatigue to PTSD and back to trauma.

Here is the timeline:

trauma = physical wound (1690s)

trauma = “psychic wound, unpleasant experience which causes abnormal stress.” (1894)

shell shock = “traumatic reaction to the stress of battle” (1915)

battle fatigue = shell shock (1944)

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) = a set of psychological symptoms which typically develop after exposure to a violent attack (1980)

trauma = chronic mental health issues related to the experience of one or more known or unknown traumatising event(s) (1990s ff)

Contemporary trauma experts distinguish between Big Trauma with capital T and small trauma with small t. This distinction is valuable for therapists.

It should help the practitioner to identify what kind of treatment and method might serve the needs of their clients. More importantly, it should enable them to discern whether they are qualified for the job.

Trauma is a very slippery word, and a highly sensitive, often complex condition.

The original meaning of the Greek word trauma is wound, injury, hurt, defeat.

The English word wound is both a noun and a verb.

To wound is to inflict an injury.

The synonym to hurt can be both, the experience of someone having an injury inflicted on to them, as well as doing the wounding to someone else.

Wound as a noun is defined as an ‘injury to living tissue’. Wounds can be caused in many ways:

• The blade of a surgeons knife cutting through layers of tissue

• Boiling water scalding skin and flesh

• Sharp teeth digging into a limb and drawing blood

• Bullets shot into a body hitting a vital organ

• A head crashing against a hard surface, cracking the skull or concussing the brain

These are examples of severe physical wounds. They are also examples of physical trauma, which may lead to psychic trauma.

The English word injury [from Latin iniuria = wrong, injustice, insult, unlawful violence, assault, damage, harm] was born in late 14 c. In the sense of harm, damage, loss.

The verb to injure followed half a century later in the sense of to dishonour, do an injustice; to injure, hurt, harm.

In contemporary English, the acts and results of injuring relate to damaging physical health or material soundness, inflicting harm on social reputation, and assaults on mental or emotional strength.

The English word trauma is defined as an experience which causes abnormal, overwhelming pain and distress.

In current trauma theory, a ‘trauma-survivor’ is a person who has suffered injury in any of these three areas ~ physical, social, mental/emotional ~ and is diagnosed with a certain set of recognised symptoms.

In addition to the basic distinction between capital T Trauma for more severe cases and small t trauma for patients preventing lesser or weaker symptoms a whole spectrum of categories of trauma have been identified:

Childhood trauma ~ any traumatic experience occurring during childhood; synonym for ‘developmental trauma’

Collective trauma ~ trauma based on a sense of inferiority related to gender, race, ethnicity, religion etc.

Complex trauma ~ a combination of various forms of trauma

Cultural trauma ~ the shock of a sudden transition between cultures without preparation or support

Developmental trauma ~ invisible’ traumatic experiences during childhood, such as neglect, manipulation by a parent, verbal abuse, living in a toxic atmosphere

Domestic violence trauma ~ trauma as a result of physical or psychological violence of a partner

Emotional trauma ~ trauma due to neglect of fulfilment of emotional needs and the taboo of emotional expression

Family or intergenerational trauma ~ unprocessed trauma of parents and other ancestors passed on to the next generation

Historical or transgenerational trauma ~ a collective trauma related to a specific historic event, such as the holocaust

Identity trauma ~ the traumatic experience of being unwelcome during a highly sensitive phase, e.g. attempted abortion, or rejection during childhood

Perinatal trauma ~ trauma from complications during birth

Prenatal trauma ~ trauma from complications during pregnancy

Religious trauma ~ trauma from introjection throughout childhood with counterproductive beliefs, attitudes, and false religious ‘truths’, and/ or the shock of leaving a religious group

Sexual trauma ~ trauma from sexual abuse

Vicarious trauma ~ trauma from witnessing exposure to traumatic events in others

To this repertoire of categories and classes we must also add the distinction between visible and invisible trauma.

Trauma is ‘visible’ when the causation of the traumatic experience is known, at least to some extent.

When someone is unaware of their traumatic experiences, while displaying typical PTSD behaviour, the trauma is called ‘invisible’ or ‘unknown’ ~ which doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

It just means the person is suffering from a condition I call MUTE (Multiple Unidentified Traumatic Experiences), which is more common than you might think.

photo © Jessica Podraza on Unsplash

Embracing the Inner Villain

All your wounds from craving love exist because of heroic deeds.

〰 Šams ud-Dīn Muhammad Hāfez 〰

In the early days of identifying PTSD, trauma therapists were often working with soldiers who returned from the battle field. Trauma therapist, researcher and pioneer Peter Levine captured the overwhelming experience of trauma as “Fear in the face of helplessness.”

When confronted with an extremely scary situation, and the inability to handle it, the human organism gets overwhelmed, and an instinctive survival response kicks in.

Trauma therapists help the patient identify the cause of their survival response (the original wound or trauma, if you will). Once the ‘villain’ is identified the healing process can begin ~ that’s the theory.

What if the cause of the trauma is unknown, invisible, buried in the dust of history, or simply an unforeseen twist in the course of life?

What if there is no known villain? What if the ‘villain’ is ‘imperfect circumstances’ which were considered ‘normal’ at the birthplace and -time of the trauma?

Gabor Maté, Canadian MD and trauma therapist says, “Children can be traumatised not just by something terrible happening to them but by not having their needs met, by not being seen, not being heard, not being held, those are wounding for a child.”

Judith Lewis Herman, American psychiatrist and trauma researcher explains that childhood abuse survivors take the ‘evil’ onto themselves, especially if the abuser is a parent.

“Because the inner sense of badness preserves a relationship, it is not readily given up even after the abuse has stopped; rather, it becomes a stable part of the child's personality structure,” Herman writes in her book Trauma and Recovery.

Feelings of inadequacy and self-blame is a natural response in trauma-survivors. Victims take on the responsibility for the injury and believe there must be something wrong with them.

© Walt Kelly

We can go through life persuading ourselves that trauma has nothing to do with us, that it only happens to others elsewhere… until we wake up one day and discover that we’ve been wandering through a minefield of trauma-time-bombs since birth.

We may notice that we’ve been our own worst enemy for decades. The self-criticism, the self-reproach, the inexplicable sense of inferiority… or compensatory superiority…

We have convinced ourselves that we are the villain ~ just like ‘those trauma survivors’.

In cases of invisible trauma such a scenario is not unusual. Exterminating the villain is not an option. It would be the ultimate self-destruction.

The only solution to this dilemma is the recognition that all trauma-survivors are heroic humans.

Hero [from Greek hērōs = demi-god] is in its original sense a person of superhuman strength and courage.

Historically, heroic humans are brave warriors. In fictional narratives the heroine or hero is the main character of a story, the one who has to face various challenges, overcome major obstacles, and save the world in the end.

If you are a trauma-survivor, then you are the heroine or hero of your own life story per definition. You have already faced tremendous challenges, overcome massive obstacles, and saved your world!

Having gone through overwhelming threatening experiences ~ and survived ~ is living proof. The remaining challenge of your story involves acknowledging, validating, and understanding your own achievement.

[See my substack Synchronosophy for an example of invisible trauma and a heroic journey of healing]