Big-T Trauma & Small-t Trauma
Blatant forms of trauma in the family include being subjected to and/or witnessing physical and sexual abuse is considered Big T Trauma. Trauma also occurs in more subtle forms—for example, living with fear on an ongoing basis, such as the fear of not knowing if or when a parent is coming home; or the fear that comes with listening to one’s parents argue night after night; or the fear of not being able to rely on a parent attending a significant event. This type of trauma is called small-t Trauma.To live with chronic fear during the vulnerable childhood and adolescent years—when one is developing beliefs about oneself and the world at large—is traumatic to emotional, psychological and spiritual development.
In addition to the more blatant forms of abuse, these children are often subjected to covert forms of sexual abuse; being called sexual names such as, “whore,” “slut,” or being asked if he or she got “laid” last night and then being laughed at in a humiliating tone; or being exposed to drunken nudity, which often reinforces negative statements to a child about his or her own body. All small-t Trauma.
It is living with broken promises, lying and unpredictability—not knowing what will happen next.
With this type of small-t trauma comes a myriad of feelings, such as:
- Fear—of being with an under–the-influence driver; of divorce, or no divorce; that someone will get seriously hurt or die.
- Sadness—for the parent not showing up; for what the parent said or didn’t say to the child.
- Anger—for broken promises; for the message that the parent’s using is more important than the child; that the parent does not try to quit or is not able to quit.
- Embarrassment—for outbursts in front of friends; for the unkempt appearance of the parent; for what the parent said or did in public.
- Guilt—for thinking that they are responsible for their parents’ behavior; for having negative feelings for someone they are supposed to love.
- Confusion—about why this is all happening and who is at fault.
How does trauma affect addiction?
Stress responses and trauma
There are three types of stress: positive, tolerable and toxic.
Positive stress is associated with moderate short-lived physiological responses, such as the stress that comes with meeting new people, handling frustration, coping with parental limit-setting, etc. Positive stress is an important and necessary aspect of healthy development.
Tolerable stress is associated with physiological responses that could actually disrupt brain architecture, but are relieved by supportive relationships, among other protective factors. These are stress situations such as the death or illness of a loved one; a frightening accident; or a natural disaster. Certainly, these types of experiences can have long-term consequences, and they often become traumatic, particularly when coinciding with toxic conditions in childhood, which are traumatic in and of themselves. However, such stresses are emotionally and mentally tolerable when they are time-limited and the child has access to supportive people to provide buffering protection.
Toxic stress, the most threatening, is associated with strong and prolonged activation of the body’s stress management systems in the absence of the buffering protection of support. Toxic stress emerges in the face of loss—conditions of extreme poverty; continuous family chaos; persistent emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse; chronic parental depression; persistent parental substance abuse or other manifestations of addiction; and ongoing emotional or physical neglect. Without the protective factors that allow children the space to disengage, they become trauma victims. Stereotypically, when we think of trauma, what comes to mind are public catastrophic events than can overwhelm an adult. What distinguishes childhood trauma from occurrences like combat stress is simply that the injuries occur to children. “Dear Lord, be good to me,” reads the epigram for the National Children’s Defense Fund. “The sea is so wide and my boat is so small.” A child’s personality and neurology—the little boat he or she must navigate in—are still developing.
When it is not safe psychologically or physically to be the person you are, to own your truth, and what you see and how you feel, then you move into various trauma responses—you fight, you flee or you freeze. Today we know the body cannot tell the difference between an emotional emergency and physical danger. When triggered, it will respond to either situation by pumping out stress chemicals designed to impel someone to flee to safety or stand and fight.
Trauma is an incident or occurrence that happens inexplicably or without warning. It is categorized as an over whelming life-changing experience. It is typically a physical and/or emotional shock to the very fiber of ones’ being.
Trauma presents an imbalance to our emotional or mental system that is far beyond the norm. Plane crash, automobile fatality, sudden or near death experience or major life alterations can all be considered traumatic whether experienced or witnessed. A person’s response can result in intense fear, helplessness or horror.
Though one may have a substance abuse issue before trauma strikes, trauma often paves the way from abuse to addiction.
Everyone has varying degrees of trauma in their life. Depending on the person and their ability to handle traumatic situations, these experiences can range from shock-wave shivers when re-living the incident to an almost out of body experience due to the lack of acceptance from the event.
Similar to depression, trauma can lead to self medication (prescription or otherwise) to numb the pain in an attempt to dilute the reality of the occurrence; which in turn can lead to dependency and/or addiction.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a very real and professional diagnosis categorized under Anxiety Disorders. One has acute PTSD if the duration of symptoms is less than 3 months, and it becomes chronic if over 3 months.
Some of the emotional symptoms associated with PTSD are:
- Avoiding conversations associated with the trauma and not dealing with or confronting emotions and feelings.
- Avoiding certain people or places that may arouse memories of the incident.
- Feeling detached or estranged from society and friends. Interests, hobbies or activities are considered unimportant and not worth any effort to reincorporate into their life.
- Difficulty in having or continuing with intimate relationships. This is especially true if a sexual or physical violation upon the person is the reason for the trauma.
- Some of the physical symptoms associated with PTSD are:
- Difficulty relaxing, or sleeping soundly.
- Easily agitated or irritable.
- Mercurial behavior or mood swings
- Concentration or commitment to a task is short lived.
Trauma should never be taken lightly, but especially if it involves a child. For a youngster, trauma can be anything from bathroom accidents at home or in school to being picked on for something that might catch the amusement of fellow classmates. It does not have to be of such magnitude as listed above, but to a child many events in their formative years become larger than life and therefore traumatic.
Parents frequently deny that their child has experienced any trauma, or they may down play its significance, or simply wish/believe the child is over it.
Regardless of child or adult, if these traumas are not dealt with in their infancy, it can result in unfinished business and could rear its ugly head later in life in the form of addictive behavior. Remember that self medication is an attempt to take away the pain can easily turn into addiction from wounds that turn into scars.
Most present day addiction therapists and researchers believe that trauma is at the root of most addictions. There are two basic types of trauma. The first is developmental trauma. This is where crucial developmental needs are not met or are thwarted so that crucial development does not happen, or happens in a skewed way.
Some examples of thwarted developmental needs include situations where a parent is too repressive, too critical, or too encouraging of an adolescence’s sexuality so that normal sexual development is interfered with and either does not happen, or happens in an unhealthy direction.
The second type of trauma is event trauma or shock trauma. One example of this kind of trauma is sexual abuse, which usually causes a state of traumatic shock within a person. This type of trauma can cause many problems – such as unhealthy sexual development, symptoms of unregulated emotions, or over stimulation of the nervous system to name a few.
This is why an addiction may come into play – because a person tries to use the addiction to “medicate” or handle the state of traumatic shock to better deal with the challenges of life, or move on with development that needs to happen.
When a person has developmental trauma the situation is somewhat different from shock trauma, but this kind of trauma can also lead to an addiction.
To illustrate this I will use an example of a person addicted to masturbation with pornography. A person could get into this type of addiction because their sexual development was derailed during adolescence and they turned to this type of sex at that time, instead of moving towards beginning to be sexual with other peers during adolescence.
Either type of trauma can interfere with healthy sexual development and can lead to sexual addictions (and/or other addictions) in an attempt to cope with the trauma and its symptoms.
The reality is that there is a closer link between addiction and trauma that is often overlooked.
The way I see it, there are at least 3 distinct stages to addiction:
- What happens before drug use.
- What happens once the drug use begins.
- What happens once a person stops using.
Though we often like to pretend otherwise, trauma is a common part of the first stage.
How do we define trauma?
In this context, trauma is any event that affects a person in a way that can be seen to have caused a substantial, long term, psychological disturbance. The key to this way of looking at trauma is its subjective nature.
Things like divorce, bullying, rejection, or physical injury can all be considered traumatic if the subjective experience can be thought to conform to this definition. Anything counts as long as it leaves a painful emotional mark.
While we’re all pretty adapt at covering up such trauma, the emotional pain often needs to be soothed and a good way to soothe it is with drugs that make it temporarily go away. The first drink of alcohol, or hit of some other drug, will often take care of that.
The reality of early trauma and addiction
Some call the experience of covering up the pain of trauma with drugs “self-medication” (though the term also applies to other situations), some dislike the term, but I think the fact remains that often, emotional pain can begin a search that often leads to risky behaviors and drugs.
I’m nowhere near calling self-medication the only reason for drug abuse as some others do, but I think it’s an important factor and one that can’t be ignored. As the stigma of emotional pain, or emotional responding in general, is reduced, people’s ability to deal with such pain in a healthy way should lead to a reduction in seemingly helpful, but ultimately self-destructive behaviors.
The ignored reality about addiction is that it often has an origin in behavior and unfortunately, trauma is often that starting point.
There is a fairly common phenomenon where trauma can lead to addiction and addiction leads back to trauma.
A survivor of trauma is at a significantly greater risk of developing some type of addiction and the reverse is also true.
At The Retreat Counseling Center, all of our licensed therapists are specialized in treating trauma. Please contact us today if you’re looking for help overcoming your own trauma.
