Category: trauma

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On Trauma :: Types of trauma living within us

The ORDINARY RESPONSE TO ATROCITIES is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.

~Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.

~Laurell K. Hamilton, Mistral’s Kiss

As we move through the close of 2017, as we move from the ever growing darkness into the expanding light here in the northern hemisphere, I want to take some time to speak about trauma, how it lives within us, how it impacts us, and what all trauma truly is.

You may be thinking, what a depressing topic to talk about as we are supposed to be celebrating and jolly.  My response to this is, that what better time to talk about our shadow parts, what better time to bring what is hidden within us into light, as we are celebrating new beginnings, awakenings, and births?

And so, let’s talk about trauma.  Because it lives within all of us.  Whether it be trauma from our own lived experiences, trauma from our ancestors, or trauma from our oppressive culture, we each carry trauma in our bodies and psyches and spirits.  So today, let’s explore the different types of trauma that we each have within us to better understand what I mean when I say “we all have trauma” and so we can all better understand our own Self.

TYPES OF TRAUMA

Lived Experience Trauma.  This is the trauma that lives within us as a result of the traumatic events we personally experienced in our lives.  It can be chronic (multiple events, like ongoing childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse by a caregiver or later in life an intimate partner, neglect, living in poverty, etc) or acute (one time events like a surgery, car accident, a one time assault like a rape or mugging).  This trauma is based in our own personal history and story.  We may remember or not remember events, and either way they occurred during our lifetime.

Ancestral and Inter-generational Traumas.  These are the traumas that are passed down to us from our family.  Ancestral trauma, in my definition, is what is passed down through our bloodline – it appears in the epigenetic markers of our DNA and our cellular memory.  Inter-generational trauma is passed down by our family too, however it is passed down through actions.  The impacts of a trauma experienced by a mother for example would include how she was able to care for her children, and could impact attachment bonds.  Additionally inter-generational trauma can also be passed down through language (we all have specific “trigger” words that either we don’t want to be associated with or we desperately do want to be associated with and our reactions to these words influence our own actions and thoughts; these words are often passed down through generations).

Cultural Relational Trauma.  This is the trauma of living in a white-supremicist, misogynist, ablist, homophobic, capitalist, patriarchal culture.  It is a trauma that lives in all of us, but to varying degrees.  It is the trauma we need to explore when considering intersectionality and remembering that not all of us are having the same experience in our world.

All of us carry at least two of the three traumas in our own bodies and being : inter-generational and ancestral trauma and cultural trauma.  Most of us also have our own lived experience traumas coursing through us too.

Having an understanding of these different types of trauma allows us to begin to understand what is impacting us, what our triggers are, how some of the ways we view world are from our own experiences and also much of how we view the world is from those who came before us.

As we are able to unravel and decipher our traumas, we are able to dismantle and process them out of our bodies and being.  This is intense work and cannot be done alone in a vacuum.  It is work that needs to be done in community, with some parts worked through in settings with only one other person and others in larger groups.

We are relational beings and trauma impacts our ability to relate with each other.  As we learn more about trauma and our own trauma we can also begin to understand how others are also impacted and influenced by trauma.

I talk more about this in the 10-minute video below.

This essay is the first in a four-part series introducing the topics we will be exploring in my new six month program Trauma Focused Embodiment Level 1.  We begin February 1.  You can learn more here.

Additionally the main focus of my individual work is trauma and utilizing trauma informed embodiment with my clients.  If you are looking for an individual therapist, you can learn more about me and my individual therapy work here.

And finally, I facilitate a free online group on Facebook where we explore trauma, grief, embodiment,and their intersections.  It is called Trauma Informed Embodiment and you can join us right here.

Other Essays & Videos in this series ::

On Trauma :: Types of Trauma Living Within Us (this essay)

On Trauma :: The Physiological Impacts of Trauma

On Trauma :: The Psychological and Emotional Impacts of Trauma 

On Trauma :: Processing or Healing?

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On Grief :: Holidays, Anniversaries, & Other Triggers

So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love. 

~E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

It’s so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer… and everything collapses.  

~Colette

The holiday season, we are told, is supposed to be time of joy, of laughter, of reverie. And while this can certainly part of our lived experience of this time of year, it is also true that this season can also carry with it grief, loss, and heartache.

For me this time of year is bittersweet.  There is much I love about the upcoming holiday season, and also, there is much that makes me acutely notice those who are not here, whether by death or personal choice, and the loss and grief that is associated with that.

It is a time of year when we are expected to put on our “happy face” no matter what we are feeling and experiencing inside.  It is a time of year to make light of everything, even our pain.  It is the time to make peace and be nice and get along.

To which I say, screw that.

Regardless of the time of year, we get to acknowledge our own experience.  And when we are in the season of holidays, when we are in theory gathering with loved ones, of course we notice those who are not gathered with us, those who will never gather with us again.

And we get to feel the sadness and grief and pain that comes with this.

Sometimes, we can anticipate when our grief will hit us hardest and so we can prepare ourselves in some way for the wave of emotions that is to come.  And other times, we are hit out of the blue by the wave and it takes away our breath as we lose our footing and connection to ground and the here and now.

Holidays and anniversaries (of the death, or our lost person’s birthday, or our own birthday, etc) are dates on the calendar that we can look to, that we can guess how we may be affected by the day. Sometimes though, we may not consciously remember a date, and yet our bodies will know and remind us in some small or large way.  This could look like feeling agitated, having a headache, being “moody” or easily irritated, being weepy, etc.

And then there are the triggers that sneak up on us.  Driving by a particular park or past a favorite restaurant or someone tells a joke that our loved one used to tell or a friend shares a story of our person that we hadn’t heard before (or had heard dozens of times before).  And our body and mind reacts and moves into deep grief, almost instantly.

Most of us know of the Kublar-Ross 5-Stages of Grief Model.  I invite us all to throw this model away.  Instead, I invite us to get to know Worden’s Tasks of Grief which are ::

1. Accept the reality of your loss

2. Work through the pain of grief

3. Adjust to an environment in which the deceased is missing

4. Find an enduring connection with the deceased while embarking on a new life

These tasks are not linear.  In many ways we are working through all four tasks at one time to varying degrees throughout of grief process.  I have found by looking at grief through this lens, that we have tasks to do and be in (instead of stages to accomplish), is incredibly helpful, particularly in getting through the holidays, anniversaries and other triggers that will appear throughout the months and years after our loved one has died.

I talk more about this in the 13 minute video below::

This essay is the third and final in a three part series I have written exploring grief and loss, how it affects us, and how our culture attempts to stifle it. Here are links to the others in the series ::

On Grief :: Loss is Loss

On Grief :: The Passage of Time

On Grief :: Holidays, Anniversaries, and Other Triggers (this essay)

 

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On Grief :: The passage of time

I was tired of well-meaning folks, telling me it was time I got over being heartbroke. When somebody tells you that, a little bell ought to ding in your mind. Some people don’t know grief from garlic grits. There’s somethings a body ain’t meant to get over. No I’m not suggesting you wallow in sorrow, or let it drag on; no I am just saying it never really goes away. (A death in the family) is like having a pile of rocks dumped in your front yard. Every day you walk out and see them rocks. They’re sharp and ugly and heavy. You just learn to live around them the best way you can. Some people plant moss or ivy; some leave it be. Some folks take the rocks one by one, and build a wall.

~Michael Lee West, American Pie

Loss, and the accompanying grief, are not things we can simply “get over” or “move past.” When there is a death, it is a death.  The person who died is not coming back.  They will leave a hole in our hearts and lives for as long as we ourselves continue to breathe.  In time we learn to live with the hole.  In time the hole doesn’t ache as much or as often. In time, we find ways to work around and in and above the hole.  But that hole, it’s still there.

And even though our person will always be gone, and even though we will always grieve this truth, it is also true that in time and when we allow ourselves to process our grief, the grief does become… less intense, less raw, less constant.

This is not to say that even years later there aren’t moments or hours or days of intense grief, of deeply missing our person.  Those days will exist.  And they will be less common than in those early days and months of loss.

We live in a culture that would have us believing that grief shouldn’t last for very long.  Many companies offer three days of “bereavement pay”.  THREE DAYS.  Let me tell you from experience, that isn’t even enough time to plan the funeral or memorial service, let alone have space to actually grieve and cry and howl about our loss.

The DSM-5 (the holy bible of the psychology world) tells us that six months after our clients experience a loss, we need to evaluate them for complex grief disorder.  SIX MONTHS.

Yes, our culture, and my profession, has turned grief into a disorder. (Note there is much debate about this particular diagnosis/disorder within the psychology community and particularly those of us who work with grief and the grieving.)

There is also a timeline, a linear path, for us to follow when it comes to our grief.  Kublar-Ross gave us the Five Stages of Grief, and this has been interpreted for many to mean this is how we should be grieving and if we don’t follow this path in a timely manner, well then there is clearly something wrong with us.  (I much prefer Worden’s Tasks of Grief as way of looking at our grieving process.  I’ll write more about that in the third and final essay of this series).

These timelines are put upon us for a reason:: in our culture we do not like to experience discomfort, and will go to any lengths to avoid it.  This includes the discomfort that bubbles up when either we ourselves, or someone we care about, is experiencing and processing their own grief and loss.

Because let’s be honest, grief and loss are uncomfortable to say the least.  As the person experiencing it, it is a visceral experience, our whole body responds to the death of someone we love.  As the person who is there to be of support to the grieving, there is also discomfort, both physical in the sensing of the visceral experience of our loved one who is grieving, and also the existential discomfort of facing our own mortality and the mortality of those we love.

Because 100% of us will die at some point.  And 100% of us will also experience grief and loss, at least once, in our lives (for most of us, we will have this experience multiple times).

And frankly, most of us don’t want to sit with or in any of that.  And we were never shown how to sit in and with that discomfort.  It was never modeled for us how to stay in our bodies and allow the pain and agony of grief and loss to run through us. In my opinion, this is something we need to change for ourselves, and for future generations.  We need to learn how to acknowledge, allow, and sit with these uncomfortable and unpleasant sensations and emotions, otherwise they will continue to exist within us and create their own havoc upon our bodies and minds.

The reality is, that grief is a life-long process.  Yes, it comes in waves.  Yes it can become less intense with time and processing.  Yes, it won’t always feel as raw as in those first days and months and year.  And yes, even decades later, we will miss our person.

I talk more about this in the 14-minute video below ::

This essay is the second in a three part series I have written exploring grief and loss, how it affects us, and how our culture attempts to stifle it. Here are links to the others in the series ::

On Grief :: Loss is Loss

On Grief :: The Passage of Time (this essay)

On Grief :: Holidays, Anniversaries, and Other Triggers (link coming soon)

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On Grief :: Loss is loss

You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it. 

~J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

For three years I worked/interned/externed as a grief counselor for a local family grief support center.  The clients I worked with were as young as four and as old as in their 70s.  The losses ranged from parent loss to sibling loss to child loss to intimate partner loss.  The kinds of deaths our clients loved ones experienced were cancers and heart attacks, car accidents and random shootings, and all forms of suicide.

We mostly offered groups, for appropriate age ranges and types of loss.  One of our tenets for all the groups is: “We do not compare losses.”  Meaning that grief is grief.  Our person is gone and while the way they exited this life may have been dramatic or mundane, our hearts are broken all the same.

In all the groups I co-facilitated, this was never an issue.  We set the boundary up front and no one ever tried to play the “My grief is better/worse than yours” game.

I’ve seen that game played out in life outside the center though.  Hell, I’ve even played that game.

When we are hurting, when we are in the rawness of our grief, the immediate, and traumatic, impact of it, it can be hard to notice how others may be hurting, may have experienced similar loss, may be grieving right along side you with your loss.

Those early days and weeks and months of grief have us self-focused.  Because our pain is so intense.  And even if we need to function and care for others as we are feeling our own pain, the hurt, the what feels to be all consuming hurt, is ours and through this lens we look at the world.

So, it makes sense in those early days and weeks and months that we may deeply believe that our own pain is greater than another’s.  That no one has ever suffered in this kind of rawness as we are.  The no one could possibly understand what we are experiencing.

And as is often the case with the stories we tell ourselves in our heads, none of this is necessarily true.

It is true that no one has experienced the exact form of grief, in the exact way, that we each have.  We are each individuals, with similar, yet vastly unique experiences.

And.

Grief is part of being human.  Loss is part of our lived experience.

And no matter what the loss is, it is uncomfortable at best, excruciatingly painful at worst.  No matter the loss, grief comes and goes in waves that sometimes we feel we will drown in and others we are able to surf.

Yes, our personal experiences are unique, and they are also universal.

I talk more about this in the 12 minute video below.

This essay is the first in a three part series I have written exploring grief and loss, how it affects us, and how our culture attempts to stifle it. Here are links to the others in the series ::

On Grief :: Loss is Loss (this essay)

On Grief :: The Passage of Time

On Grief :: Holidays, Anniversaries, and Other Triggers (link coming soon)

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On Self Care :: Stress, Grief, & Embodiment

When we contemplate the miracle of embodied life, we begin to partner with our bodies in a kinder way.

~Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

I have a confession.

I actually love the winter holiday season.

I love all the lights and glitter. I love the promise of snow.  I love the food we eat this time of year.  I love the hustle and bustle and the quiet snuggling in.  I do.  I love it.

And.

This time of year is also challenging for me.  My mother’s birthday is in mid-December and so there is a triple reminder of how she is not here to celebrate this time of year with us.  I notice how certain family members don’t call.  I think of friends who have moved away.  I consider the things and opportunities in life that I have lost.  I think about the life I wanted compared to the life I have.

In short, while I love this time of year, it is also a time of grieving.

And while I do love the bright energy of the hustle and bustle of this time of year, I also am acutely aware of how that bright energy can become heavy and oppressive.  How what is supposed to be fun can become overwhelmingly stressful.  How one moment I may look at my full calendar with excitement and anticipation and the next I may look at it with dread.

Basically, I am human.  Which means I am complex.  Which means I can have a mix of seemingly opposing emotions and feelings all at once.

Just like you.

To me, it’s never a question of my complexity.  Rather, it’s a question of how I hold all of me at once.

In other words, how to do I allow all my complexity to flow and be?  How do I sit with the bittersweetness of this time of year?  How do I not only allow myself, but also encourage myself, to feel all the various and opposing emotions, thoughts, and well, feelings?

For me, that answer is being in my body.  Not leaving it, not sitting or hovering outside of it.  Rather, being in it, in the now, and finding ways to tolerate all the complex sensations and emotions that I may be having.

Embodiment is both simple and not easy.  Coming home into our bodies, and deeply feeling and sensing our lived experience can feel overwhelming at times.  It can feel too much.  And also, with practice, we learn to tolerate those challenging emotions and sensations more and more.

We stop stuffing them down, only to wait for them to explode.

We stop ignoring them, only to have them crop up as various illnesses.

We start connecting to them, dipping out toes into them at first, and in time and with practice, going further and further in, finding new ways to embrace our own complexities, our own disparities, our own both ands.

I talk more about this in the 14 minute video below ::

This essay is the third and final essay in a three part series I have put together to introduce some of the topics we’ll be exploring in my winter self-care circle, Self Care for Challenging Times :: Holiday Edition.  If you’d like to learn more and possibly join us, you can click right here.

Other essays in this series::

Holidays, Trauma, & Our Nervous Systems

Boundaries, Boundaries, Boundaries