Not everyone who has experienced trauma realizes it. In therapy, it’s common for people to gloss over or normalize harrowing experiences as they share their history. Sometimes they’re completely unaware that they’re subtly revising their story in this way.
Others recount traumatic events, but seemingly without the corresponding emotion. They describe painful events as if explaining the plot of a movie they saw, rather than tragic circumstances that profoundly shaped their inner world. They know what happened, but there’s no reference point, no contrast to help them see just how distressingly unfortunate the hand they were dealt really was. Without that contrast, a kind of emotional isolation ensues, which often results in the normalization of suffering. . .and that means that these individuals don’t qualify their heartache as suffering per se. They tend to think that “everyone must feel this way; it’s just life.”
Intuitively, it makes sense that this kind of superficial interaction with past trauma would serve as a way for the mind to protect the psyche. It’s as if the mind is saying: “Those events were excruciating enough to live through all those years ago; why would you want to hurt yourself again by re-living them now?”
For people who carry their trauma in this way, life moves forward on the surface, yet the unnamed trauma functions like a blackout curtain, obscuring how childhood trauma shapes the abuse survivor. This lack of awareness has many roots. Sometimes the pain is simply too great, so the mind locks it away through dissociation and compartmentalization. Other times the events are acknowledged as “bad” or “difficult,” but never truly processed, leaving raw experience frozen in time and place and therefore negatively impacting the psyche beneath the surface.
For some individuals, the way they define themselves leaves no room for acknowledging the reality of having been victimized (“I’m strong; things like that don’t happen to people like me”; “It wasn’t that bad, others had it worse”), so the story gets rewritten to protect the ego’s fragility. Add to this the social pressure to “just move on,” family rules of silence, or an early lesson that other people’s needs matter more than your own, and you leave the emotional body vulnerable to invisible (and yet, still incredibly painful) wounds.
The brutality and lingering impact of trauma
It’s important to distinguish between traumatic experiences and merely upsetting experiences (which everyone will face—not so for trauma). Trauma is overwhelming. The terror/fear, confusion, shame/humiliation, disbelief, and/or physical pain are too much to process in the moment. One does not “bounce back” from trauma the way they would from an upsetting experience. Trauma leaves an indelible mark. And the intensity and frequency of trauma compounds its devastating impact.
When possible, we will do whatever it takes to escape, mitigate or minimize the impact that trauma has had on us. These adjustments to the self and the inner world help us navigate trauma’s impact, but, at some point, these same coping strategies rob us of our authenticity and our capacity to live our lives to their fullest.
Attachment trauma is childhood trauma caused by an important attachment figure, i.e., a caregiver, sibling, family friend, teacher, clergy. If attachment trauma is not dealt with in adulthood, the humiliation and toxic shame associated with it is carried forward and will impact every aspect of life. Individuals with attachment trauma wounds can look functional, even impressive, on the outside—raising kids, showing up for others, achieving outward success—but inside there’s a private emptiness or a lingering heartache that no one sees.
Trauma-based humiliation becomes a warning system. Get too close to someone and a message sounds: Bail now, before they see how pathetic you really are! Receive kindness and the system shouts: They wouldn’t offer you this if they knew the truth about you!
One of attachment trauma’s harshest cruelties is the dread it causes of being fully seen and known by others, even those we deeply love and care for.
One of attachment trauma’s harshest cruelties is the dread it causes of being fully seen and known by others, even those we deeply love and care for.
Keeping the obfuscation alive
The mind is designed to help manage intolerable experiences. When a threshold of pain is reached, psychological defenses are triggered. There are different ways we defend against emotional pain, but what these self-protective reactions all have in common is the attempt to make the intolerable more tolerable.
There are a host of behaviors and activities that can be used to keep oneself untethered from buried pain (including dissociative amnesia in extreme cases). Through compulsive behaviors like overworking and substance abuse, the psyche gets numbed and the individual is distracted from the pain and the painful past. Anything that alters the consciousness can turn into a means to keep one at a distance from past trauma.
The persistence of the unprocessed
Although the original trauma may be invisible on the surface, while it goes unprocessed, it is still shaping one’s life in profound ways. By adulthood the story often morphs into, “I’m just not built for intimacy”; or “I always screw things up”; or “I’ve always been impatient and had a temper.” Attachment trauma erodes self-trust and creates an internally hostile environment where self-reflection feels impossible and where the self turns against itself. And over time, this all begins to feel commonplace and therefore remains unquestioned.
When the ongoing impact of trauma from the past remains hidden, the habitual patterns of coping with these wounds also go unexamined. And if we do decide to eliminate one of these unhealthy coping strategies (say drinking or compulsive porn viewing), these behaviors may be too entrenched to change because the underlying wellspring of wounds that feed them remains intact.
And if we do decide to eliminate one of these unhealthy coping strategies (say drinking or compulsive porn viewing), these behaviors may be too entrenched to change because the underlying wellspring of wounds that feed them remains intact.
That’s the paradox: the strategies that are used to keep us safe are the very actions that keep us stuck.
Here are four protective strategies I often see in those carrying unprocessed trauma:
Emotional numbing – When feeling feels like a threat
Traumatic and chaotic environments teach children that feelings are too much—too loud, too messy, too dangerous. So you learned to shut down and not feel. You didn’t seek comfort from others since you learned that it was better to float above yourself when things got too painful.
Now, years later, that numbness shows up in quieter ways: You’re not sure what you want. The background sadness has become commonplace, an unnamed and unwelcome presence you’ve learned to live with. Joy is flattened, a gift reserved for others who “really deserve it.” Even love can feel muted, a lead blanket that exists between you and your loved ones.
Numbing kept you from drowning. But it also taught your nervous system that emotions are unsafe. . .a lesson that continues to rob your vitality and doesn’t just go away.
Perfectionism and over-control – The illusion of safety through mastery
When your world was unpredictable, you became predictable.
As a child you may have taken on the role of the “responsible over-achiever,” but also the kid who made sure not to make waves and gain attention by out-performing your siblings or peers. Perfection gave you a sense of control where there was little. And if you got it just right, there might have been moments that you would be loved and cared for in the way you needed.
But maintaining the illusion of perfection is exhausting. You double- and triple-check everything, even something as innocuous as your texts to friends. In order to avoid mistakes, overworking (to the point where it can feel punishing) becomes the norm. Replaying and obsessing over conversations long after they’ve ended is commonplace. Rest and leisure are something you always have to earn, if you even give yourself that. You can’t let go, because the underlying fear tells you that something will fall apart if you do.
What began as a survival tactic has become a prison.
Fawn and fix – If I take care of you, maybe I’ll be okay
When love was lacking, unpredictable or conditional, you learned to over-function and became indispensable.
In the pursuit of safety, you became overly attuned to the needs of others (often at the expense of your own). You may have tried to sense what others needed before they even asked. To achieve this, you might have existed in a state of vigilance, anticipating and reacting in order to please others.
Since you couldn’t make yourself invisible, you may have tried to make yourself small. Leaving a psychological footprint may have brought on the wrath of others, so you learned to exist on the sidelines, ready to placate and please in order to keep the peace.
This form of self-sacrifice may have kept you safe in some regards, but it also comes at a great cost. You might feel depressed or hopeless. You may feel guilty setting boundaries, even when they’re clearly warranted. You may apologize for taking up space. It has become a habit to say yes when you want to say no—and you call it kindness.
This strategy helped you survive, but it also taught you that love must be earned by erasing yourself.
Exit strategies – If I don’t attach, I can’t be hurt
Childhood trauma teaches the survivor that getting close to others is dangerous. Closeness may have led to exploitation or may have been pulled from you abruptly, and this can leave a residue of lasting fear and pain.
So now, you leave before anyone can leave you. You disappear into work, into your phone, into self-destructive numbing substances or activities, into silence. Healthy intimacy can feel smothering. Being known and emotionally seen can create discomfort, and for some, an underlying terror. You may have discovered that a certain level of distance from others feels more comfortable and manageable than closeness.
This strategy may have worked for a while, but it can result in deep loneliness that stirs your desire for closeness while also awakening the fears associated with closeness.
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In order to change the unhealthy ways of being imposed on us by trauma, we must look inward. Only an inward journey will allow us to explore the relationships between the wounded parts of ourselves and the parts that were formed to protect us by creating distance from that inner pain.
These self-contorting adjustments often become deeply ingrained ways of functioning. And while they may have once served us, they come with significant consequences. Some of these coping strategies are clearly self-destructive. Others are more subtle, almost invisible, even to us. Many are confusing—reflexive behaviors that feel impossible to control, even when we know they’re hurting us and those we care about.
Healing begins when we can start to see these patterns not simply as brokenness, but as protective parts of us. Parts that have worked tirelessly—sometimes for many decades—to buffer us from the devastation of past harm. As Schwartz and Sweezy (2020) write, this devastation lives on in the wounded parts of us that were exiled long ago, pushed out of awareness because feeling their pain was unbearable at the time.
Change starts when we begin to acknowledge that trauma has occurred—and that it continues to shape us in ways both obvious and hidden.
When this occurs, a door opens through which those long-exiled parts can be seen and heard. Healing begins when we can offer the traumatized parts of us the attention, care and compassion they always needed.
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Rich Nicastro, PhD, is a clinical psychologist with over 25 years of experience supporting individuals and couples as they navigate betrayal trauma and other emotional challenges. He offers teletherapy to clients throughout the United States. To work with Dr. Nicastro and join his waiting list, please email him at Rich@RichardNicastro.com.
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References
Schwartz, R.C., & Sweezy, M. (2020). Internal Family Systems Therapy. 2nd edition. Guilford.
