Trauma vs trauma - What is "small t trauma?"

What is eroding you?

Trauma vs trauma - What is “small t trauma?”

Sometimes it seems like “trauma” is the psychology buzzword for this decade, and with so many people using it it has lost some of its significance. When we think of what trauma has traditionally meant it conjures up ideas about shocking events, horrible violence, terror, danger, injury, big experiences that change you forever. For many that is their experience of trauma, but in recent years we’ve come to more clearly understand a different kind of trauma; one that is delivered in drips rather than a tsunami. A slow accumulation that builds up through a myriad of moments which, taken individually, you would not classify as traumatic, but, when experienced repeatedly over time, eventually wears us away, changing our sense of who we are, our view of the world, and our behaviour just as deeply as a single traumatic event can. A ’death by a thousand cuts’. When this kind of trauma is severe enough we call it Complex Trauma.

But we’ve known about Complex Trauma since the 1980’s, you cry. Yes, we have; and that was the first step to recognising what is now being characterised as “small t trauma.” The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (the database that much of Western Psychology uses to describe and set diagnostic criteria for officially recognised mental health conditions) is used primarily in a clinical capacity - to diagnose disorders that have a significant impact on a person’s ability to function.  Just because you don’t qualify as severely impacted by something doesn’t mean you aren’t impacted at all, or that you don’t need to attend to that injury. For example, you might not need to be admitted to hospital to deal with a sprained ligament, but it still affects your day-to-day function and needs attention to heal properly. Similarly, you can still get around if you’re limping on an untreated minor injury, it’s not stopping you from doing most of what you need to do, but it does make everything more difficult, more painful, and more uncomfortable than it needs to be. That is what “small t trauma” is. Subclinical trauma. Trauma that isn’t stopping you from sleeping or driving to work or holding down a job. It’s a way of recognising that you can be hurt and profoundly shaped by your cumulative experience even if it isn’t crippling you. It’s a way of recognising that you can seek support, treatment, and healing for things that are hurting you, even if it’s not at a clinical level.

So, what does “small t trauma” look like? It’s often what we see as the result of subtle psychological and emotional abuse, for example: you may never have been outright told by your parent that they thought you were worthless, but if they consistently acted like your needs were unimportant, and that your thoughts and feeling were not worth listening to, then you could easily internalise the belief that you are not important or valuable. That is the trauma part - it changes how you see yourself, and your world. In turn this directs your behaviour, and you will act as though you are unimportant and not worth anything. Examples of this may be finding reasons to not take up opportunities, shying away from exciting challenges, denying yourself meaningful relationships because you believe you don’t deserve it, difficulty living up to the expectations, or aren’t worth the investment. These behaviours are considered ‘Self sabotage’ and it is not something we diagnose clinically. Low self-esteem is not in the DSM. However, these are still things that keep you limping through life and holding you back from romping and dancing gleefully through life’s opportunities and joys.

It’s worth noting here that experiencing any kind of trauma, big T or small t, is not an indication of weakness or failure. Rather, it’s evidence that your brain and your mind are working together to protect you from something that was harmful, and that protective strategy has been very effective. With small t trauma the issue is often that you’ve become stuck in “protect mode” which overrides many other processes that work towards your personal growth, development, and enrichment. By exploring how you ended up here, and why, we can start to deactivate and reassign some of these “defence protocols.” This process moves you towards a greater sense of safety and allows you to re-engage more of your growth-focused processes. This shift from “protective” to “open” can feel like taking a deep breath after taking off a corset, or like stepping into the sunshine after years of overcast weather. You may have become so accustomed to your protective mode that you were hardly aware of it, but the difference after you start doing this personal work is refreshing and rejuvenating.

So how do I know if I’m affected? It’s subtle, but once you start looking you may start to notice that something that others seem to do without even thinking is uncomfortable for you. Some signs can be physically based - poor sleep, chronic health problems, for many women it shows up in their painful menstruation, headaches, strong aversions, or fatigue. Other symptoms are more behaviourally based - depressive and anxious symptoms, low self-esteem, difficulty in all kinds of relationships, trust issues, reactionary responses to other people’s behaviour, and difficulty seeing others’ points of view. These are some of the common ones, but remember, as individualised as trauma is, so are the symptoms. The point is not whether you tick a box on the “are you traumatised?” list, but whether something is constricting you, hurting you, or holding you back. The shoes that are comfortable on one person, will hurt another’s feet. It’s about your response and how it is playing out for you.

I encourage you to consider the subtle ways in which an old injury may be slowing you down, ways that you may be so used to that you barely even notice any more. Maybe there's something that used to make you mad or you felt was unjust, but you seem to have learned to live with over the years. Is something restricting you or feeling uncomfortable? We can work on that! It doesn’t have to remain stiff and painful to reach out for the life you want, we can do some “mental physiotherapy” - stretching your mind, emotional strengthening exercises, and thought mobility drills… It is never too late to care for your emotional and psychological health, there is always ground to be gained in your journey toward your most joyous, strongest, and most healed self.

Reach out if you'd like to talk. Maybe I'm the therapist for you, maybe not, either way, you can start here and see where it takes you.

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