It could have been worse- so why am I struggling so much?

We can think of trauma on a spectrum from big T trauma to little t trauma. Big “T” trauma is everything that comes to mind when you hear the word– assault, war, natural disasters, things of that nature. Little “t” trauma is often not identified as trauma to most people because they are less obvious. Little “t” trauma is any event in life that overwhelms our nervous system and therefore does not allow us to integrate that experience the way that natural learning occurs. From this lens we believe that all people have had this experience at one point or another. With that being said, we really wanted to dive into what little “t” trauma can look like and where it stems from.

A lot of times those who experience little t trauma feel like what happened in their life could have been much worse, leading them to think “why am I struggling so much, my childhood was good, I never had anything major happen to me?”

Here is a metaphor that we hope can help shed some light on this for you;

If someone were to walk over to you and hand you a 50lb weight, you would feel the effects of that 50lb weight almost immediately. Right? Pretty soon you would think, “okay I have to put this down, this is not tolerable, my whole body hurts.” This almost immediate effect of a 50 lb weight is the reality of a big T trauma. The effects are unbearable and blatant.

Something happens that totally disrupts your world and you know exactly what it is and it feels immediately intolerable and the effects of the trauma are obvious.

But what's more insidious is this– what if instead of a 50lb weight, someone walks over and hands you a 1lb weight?

You would notice the 1lb at first. It would be uncomfortable and then eventually your body would become accustomed to it. You might have to adjust the way that you walk, or the way that you do things, but you would eventually forget about it and your body would learn to adjust to life with having this extra weight.

But then what if the next day or even the next week someone came over and handed you another 1lb weight and another 1lb weight the next day and yet another 1lb weight the following day? Eventually the cumulative effect of all of those little weights (or all of those little “t” traumas) adds up in our body.

But we don't even notice that it’s happening because it doesn’t have that drastic impact on our bodies that the 50lb weight did.

This is exactly how these little “t” or attachment traumas affect our lives. They are much more insidious and often leave us wondering why we were so affected by them.  

For example– your parents might not have been violent. But if they displayed a lack of attunement that left you feeling alone or on edge, never feeling celebrated or like you had someone to guide you through your emotions– all of these things will add up. Just like those 1lb weights. All of these ‘smaller’ but cumulative experiences often leave people confused and not understanding why they have anxiety, depression, relationship conflicts, are triggered at work or school, etc.

We find that this is because there's no one big thing that you can point to and say that's it, this is why I have anxiety or depression. But it was the cumulative effect of never feeling like enough or feeling powerless or worthless or not having our emotional needs met. Having emotional needs met is the number one thing that a child needs after getting their basic needs for physical safety and nourishment met.

In order to heal from our pain we must be able to hold it for what it is. Without exaggerating or minimizing it. So many of us carry pain from all these unresolved little “t” traumas or pebbles that get activated in our day to day lives. The first step to healing is being able to hold those experiences for what they were and acknowledge the impact they had on us.

If we can learn to look back at those younger parts with love and empathy instead of denial and minimizing we can find so much healing and freedom.

With love,

Stephanie and Elizabeth

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