Breaking Down Trauma: What It Is And How To Heal

 

Trauma is an emotional response to anything that produces a jarring, negative, fear, or anxiety disruption. In this episode, Bill Courtright and Eddie Reece delve into the complexities of trauma, exploring its origins, how it manifests in everyday life, and the profound consequences it can have. From a lack of support and feeling judged to experiencing emotional criticism, they uncover the various sources of trauma and discuss the beautiful outcome of seeking guidance and support in addressing it. Eddie also bravely shares his personal journey with trauma and the coping mechanisms he developed to overcome its challenges. Tune in to discover how understanding and healing from trauma can empower you to live your best and most fulfilled life.

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Breaking Down Trauma: What It Is And How To Heal

We have a very interesting and quite compelling topic in this episode. It is one that both Eddie and I were a little bit excited to discuss because we feel not only it is incredibly important. It’s a little bit misunderstood and it’s probably more relevant than most people would even think. The topic for this episode is trauma. The word in and of itself creates a little bit of anxiety just saying it. I think we all have an idea of what trauma is or what it means. From the perspective of a career therapist please, could you take a moment just to define for the audience. What is trauma?

What Is Trauma

Trauma is, as you said, misunderstood. I think most people, when they hear that word, they immediately tune out because they weren’t in a war. They haven’t had awful tragedies happen to them. Trauma certainly comes from those things, but the everyday trauma of our lives shows up too that trauma can be emotional neglect, which is the kind of trauma I see all the time. Even if, say you had a bad wreck or your house burned down or something like that. The neglect of the dealing with your emotions around that event is trauma.

It will always come back to no matter what trauma it was, what the event was, or how big or small, if the emotional content of that event was neglected, then you’re going to have trauma. Which means you will see all of the manifestations of people who have experienced trauma. If folks think about it that way, then they say, “X number of percentage of the people have experienced trauma.” I go, “No, 100% of people have experienced trauma. What do you think being born is? What do you think being squeezed to death and shoved through a small hole into a frightening ridiculous world and losing all the comfort and safety that you had? What do you think that is?” It’s starts right there.

What I heard you say essentially is trauma is an emotional response to anything that would produce any level of, not necessarily unwelcome but jarring or negative, fear, anxiety, or disruption. What I heard you say and what made me think was that unresolved, undressed, and unacknowledged component.

Trauma could be different things to different people from what I’m hearing, but the fact that it gets neglected in your words or unresolved, in my words, unaddressed. We’re not going to cure a melanoma with a Band-Aid. Hardly capable of curing any level of trauma without discussing it with a professional. How do you go about understanding? When is it appropriate to address this? How do I know if the trauma was big enough to cause a concern?

Don’t think of it as, was it big enough? Think of your life. You can forget trauma all together if you want to. You can go, how do I relate to people? Is that something I do well? Is this something that our struggle with? Do I get feedback from people that you’re behaving in this way or you’re behaving this way? Can I easily access experience and share my emotions in a world that wants to hear and be with those emotions because that’s what neglect is.

When my beloved dog died when I was a young, that was a horrible moment. The worst part of that, the results of the trauma of his death was that I have a very clear snapshot memory of me sitting on the front porch and just guttural crying. You say, “That’s sad.” Here’s the sad part, I was alone. That’s where the trauma that will carry out the rest of your life comes from. Not only seeing my dog ripped to shreds, is how I found them. That’s dramatic, but the real damage happens because I’m going through this alone.

I have no one to share this with. I have no one sitting there with me on that course going, “This is horrible,” and validating my reality. I come out of that neurologically, biologically, physically, and emotionally believing no one will be there for me which had been my experience throughout my childhood. No one will be there for me, emotionally. No one will sit with me and tell me that, “This is horrible.” “You’re going to cry.” “Cry as hard as you need to and for as long as you need to.” “I’m going to be right here with you.”

It’s going through the emotional content of any event by yourself or with someone that, say, if they were sitting with me in that moment, goes, “It is just a dog,” or, “We’ll get you another dog. Don’t worry about it.” That’s even worse in some ways because then you know for a fact nobody wants to be with what you’re experiencing. They want it to go away.

It’s well said. I’m a believer that the greater the emotion attached, either positively or negatively to an event specifically when we’re children, the more clear and vivid that memory. It’s almost like the emotion is what snaps that photo in your brain. I can only imagine how something so negatively emotional and how difficult it must be to have that snapshot and inopportune moments, have it on resolved and to have it unattended to, and the lack of validation, acceptance, and even acknowledgment of why a young person might experience a traumatic event from losing a best friend, essentially or the one person that was judgment-free.

No matter how long you were away or what you were doing, you get through your arms around that dog, it was 100%, therefore, you. For someone who was struggling with lack of belonging or empathy or compassion or acknowledgement or validation, that dog could have been the tether to safety as you put it but sanity perhaps and real purpose.

It’s important that people understand from a therapist perspective that trauma is different for everyone. It’s not fair for someone to judge another’s trauma. What some person may find difficult to even attract their attention, someone else could be struggling with. I have a two-part question, but we’ll start with bad news first. What’s the consequence or potential consequences for doing nothing, not addressing, and not exercising that demon so to speak?

Consequences Of Trauma

The consequences of trauma, which is what the focus should be on more than the trauma itself in the beginning. For folks in their everyday lives, this is what you want to look for. You don’t want to go, “Did I experience trauma?” Whether you did or not, are you somebody who is hypervigilant? Are you somebody that notices everything? Are you someone that even if something goes well in your life, your next thought is, “When’s the next shoe going to drop?” You can’t even enjoy something that goes well.

Do you hear other people’s voices when they talk to you as a threat? These sorts of things. Are you seeing threats and places where there is no threat? Do you just normally feel anxious? Do you feel depressed? Do you overeat? Do you under eat? Do you overwork? Do you underwork? Name of mental health issue and I’ll show you how trauma has a lot to do with it. What you’re looking at is the result of trauma. Again, you don’t even have to talk about trauma.

You talk about, it’s the result of your nervous system learning that when things are like this, as in me sitting on that front porch. Nobody cares. Nobody wants to be there for you. Nobody’s going to listen. There’s nobody to talk to about this. You are going to have to do everything on your own and then I come out of that experience. I remember this very clearly, saying out loud to myself, “I will never love anything like that again,” because I’m doing what kids do.

Our brains are not developed well enough to understand what we need to understand. I’m going to think, “The reason I’m in such pain is not because something beloved is gone. The reason I’m in pain is because I love the dog. I don’t want this pain anymore. The best way to not hurt like this ever again is to never loved anything again so I’ll never get hurt.” We take off in this approach to life as common as dirt, I’m never going to get hurt again, which is a fantasy. It’s a childhood fantasy and that’s a whole other topic we could talk and make a whole episode on this, the role of childhood fantasy and how that manifests in our life.

I grew up and I go, “I’m never going to get hurt.” “I’m never going to love it anything, so I’m never going to get close. I’m never going to be all in on anything.” If I start to get that weight and that’s going to make me anxious because I believe it’s going to hurt then it shows up in a very common way. When about I think about a long-term romantic relationship, I think about I have to pick somebody who will never hurt me, which is another fantasy. The person who’s going to hurt you the most is the person you’re most connected to because that’s how the pain manifested when my dog died.

That’s who I was most connected to. I don’t think it would have hurt me as much if one of my family members, a human family member, died. I don’t think it would have hurt me as much. I was not that attached to them. They were not, as you said earlier, very non-judgmentally accepting entity that loved me. I was way more attached to my dog than I was to any of my humans. I go through life going, I’m never going to be that way.

On the other side of it, I have another part of me who wants nothing more than to find that attachment. There’s always this push/pull. That’s how it shows up in everyday life. You don’t have to say, “That was because I experienced this traumatic event of my dog’s death.” You can just go, “That’s because the things that happened in my life is it wasn’t just that. It taught my nervous system to be extremely protective and to never get close to anything, always be on alert for what’s going to mess things up, and what’s going to hurt me.” My life’s goal is to live my life in some way and never get hurt.

There’s always this push and pull with how trauma shows up in everyday life.

Psychologically, anytime you’re trying to accomplish this, you’re going to do things that will cause the hurt to happen and we can start with, I’m not that deeply connected to anybody. That’s a huge hurt. “I feel very lonely.” “I’m bored in life.” “I don’t know what to do.” “I’m not going to ask anybody to help me. Why would I do that? Nobody’s ever been there for me. Why are they going to be there for me now?”

The level of relatability that you have is a blessing. Hearing you talk about how it relives the story of you and your dog. For the audience that’s reading, the first thing they’re going to think is, “He’s a therapist, an expert, and he’s made his life’s work helping others but he’s human. The understands the human condition and the need.” The need for acceptance and the need to love. We all know the colloquialism, better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.

That’s easy to say but to the degree that someone has the greatest love they know at 6 years old, or 7 years old, or 8 years old, or 9 years old taken from them suddenly and tragically or in any way. There’s other types of trauma as you’ve alluded to. Take the dog out of the picture. What if it’s just a person dealing with a family or a caregiver or a provider that’s non-supported or that’s overly judgmental or that’s emotionally critical?

That is because all of that is going to lead to this emotional neglect idea that if I am feeling sad or down or whatever. Even if a parent says, “What’s going on?” I don’t feel good. They go, “That’s too bad. Things will get better.” “No, the fuck they won’t.” You don’t get it. It’s the shaming, which is a whole series of episodes. That teaches the nervous system don’t share. Don’t tell anybody and so then we put on our mask or become narcissistic, which this culture is wonderful, which is why I’m going to project an image. I’m okay. How you doing? I’m fine. There’s my image so that I don’t get close so that I don’t get my emotional needs met. The damage continues day-to-day, every day, all day long.

The Healing Process: Therapy As A Safe Space

What I’m hearing here is there’s a repetitive narrative within this story and it’s about a need for safety. It’s about a feeling of vulnerability and insecurity. It’s rife with fear and that fear manifests itself as anxiety or separation or distance or a wall. You hear these things all the time. I like to pivot to something a little more positive, which is we’ve now heard what trauma is. We’ve heard how it manifests itself in everyday life. We clearly more defined it for those that might not understand. I’m sure more than one person reading or watching has said something effective, “Yes, that is trauma. Although, it wasn’t a big deal for everyone else. It was a huge deal for me.”

With trauma, there is a need for safety. It’s about a feeling of vulnerability and insecurity. It’s rife with fear and that fear manifests itself as anxiety, separation, or distance.

We talked about the consequences of doing nothing, left undressed, how that could change our behavior and perhaps make us even more lonely, vulnerable or unhappy, or depressed or anxious. Let’s pivot now to what could be the beautiful outcome having someone like you, Eddie? Having a trusted therapist, an outlet, a release, and having understanding to be able to deal with something. Regardless of how long or how little it’s been affecting your life. How is this addressed? What is the process? What could the outcome be?

If you read any of these episodes before, you know the answer. You go to therapy, but to be a little more specific, it’s a matter of connecting with someone in a way that you maybe begin to believe that you might share parts of yourself that you keep behind the image. That process takes a while which is why I’m not a big proponent of short-term therapy. It takes a while to get to a place where you feel like you can share this and get it out.

What then happens is, here’s my hurt-self that’s deep in agony and the therapist responds with, “Of course, you are. How could you not be?” That validates your reality, which is another way of saying, “Now, you don’t feel so crazy,” because you wind up feeling crazy because you’re going, “I’m in the depths of despair but I have everything anybody would ever want. What is wrong with me?” You feel crazy.

You get this out and they go, “You feel that way. How could you not?” Trauma makes sense and now you lost your best friend. That’s what it takes and it takes that over and over again. That’s why I say you maybe might start thinking it might be alright because even after it happens, we’re not going to trust it. It’s going to take repetition. It’s going to take saying, “You didn’t shame me about this, but now let me tell you about this.”

I’m sure you’re going to look at me like, “Why am I even trying to help this person?” You finally get that out and you get the same response. You go, “Let me pull this up on here. Where did you hear this story?” You do that over and over again. You get this sense that, “Oh.” Not only is it helpful but this is how relationships are supposed to work. This is what love is. This is what caring is. This is compassion. That’s way better than what I’ve been doing, so I want to do that. You learned to be that way for other people and then you just naturally find other people that will be that way with you.

You learn a huge lesson that there’s going to be people who are not going to be that way with you. They’re going to go, “It will get better. Don’t worry about it.” You’ll learn that that’s simply who they are. They’re not hurting you. They’re not attacking you. It’s not what I wish they would say, but I have a reason to be all upset with them. “You hurt me.” That’s what people do.

You learn to accept the reality of life that you move from this, “I will live my life to never be heard again,” to, “I will live my life that when I’m hurt, I know the drill. This is what I do. This is how I take care of myself. This is how I ask for help. This is how I rely on other people.” That’s what you learned so that you’re not so worried about being hurt because you know.

 

 

It certainly my belief that mental health and the concerns, the guilt, the trauma, the shame, and those bad feelings. It is tremendously enlightening and when I say enlightening, I mean literally cathartic released of weight and pressure. When you do have those blocks removed and those breakthroughs as people talk about, I believe that seeds grow where they’re watered. Dealing with your mental health and dealing with your peace of mind and feeling good about oneself is a process. No different than attending to a garden. No different than attending the lawn or any hobby.

It’s something that you do. You do it consistently, with people that care about you and understand that first do no harm and then provide you with the guardrails and illuminate to get you to where you need to go so you can live your best life. It might be something someone engages with once. Months later, they feel fantastic and good.

It saves their marriage and they never call again. It could be something. to your point where, it was addressed. I’m so glad I addressed that. Now, I want to clear out my entire closet. I want to get rid of all of everything because I felt so great dealing with the large things. I bet I would feel even greater if I dealt with everything. By the way, trauma can happen tomorrow just like it can happen last month or last year or ten years ago. Why don’t we continue this relationship and an effort to stay great? That’s what a good therapist and what a good mental health program can provide for people. What are your thoughts?

That life goes on with. I mean to say just to your point, bad things are going to happen. Difficult times are going to happen. My clients will say something along the lines of, “I’ve got all these issues to work out.” I’m like, “Even if you did, even if they were all gone, if nothing else, you’re just going to get older.” Let me tell you, that’s a challenge. If we get the ideal life, which in most people’s minds is, I live for a long time. I have all my senses about me. I’m physically in pretty good shape and then one night, I’m dying in my sleep. I’m like, “Okay, great.”

If you get that, here’s what your life is all going to be. You’re going to go to a lot of funerals. You’re going to watch a lot of people you love and care about die. You’re going to experience all of that. All of your friends are leaving and then you’re going to die. That’s the best life you could ever have. It might be a good idea to prepare for that in case you get that best life, which chances are you probably won’t. Let’s prepare. Let’s learn the drill, as I often say. Let’s learn that, here it comes, here’s what I do. What I do involves asking for help, sharing my experience with people that can hear it and listen and take it in and validate it and not try to change it and make it better. Be with it. That’s the drill.

 

 

This is great. This is my favorite episode thus far, the episode on trauma. I want to remind our audience, you don’t have to be sick to get better. Sometimes, having a therapist or someone that you can work through these things that might be preventing you from being your best self or living your best life or feeling the most fulfilled, it just feels fantastic. You can be better.

You’re not damaged. You’re not less than and unworthy. Regardless of what’s happened and what you heard, you are deserving of that betterment. Having Eddie Reece or someone like him in your life could be the difference between a life of quiet desperation and truly rewarding existence. This has been the Couch Trip therapy for everyday life with me, Bill Courtright and my great friend, Eddie Reece.

Thanks, Bill. Good job.

Take care, everybody.

Bye-bye.