It isn’t all in your head…

Emotional abuse is traumatic. You really can have your social and emotional functioning significantly altered by unhealthy relationship dynamics, particularly if they occurred in childhood. Being raised by caregivers who used humiliation, fear tactics, and excessive guilt to control and manipulate you is a form of emotional abuse. I’ve found in my practice, that other forms of mistreatment, such as being the “parentified-child,” being constantly invalidated, or having parents that were unpredictable or emotionally-immature can also have intense and pervasive impacts on the way your adult nervous system and relationship to self develop. I call this type of experience “relational trauma.”

What is trauma?

In counseling, trauma is any disturbing event that created a psychological injury that shapes your present-day behavior. There are some categories of experiences that typically cause people harm and create problems for them, but trauma can be very specific to you. Something from your past (or present) that you might not consider “traumatic” could be driving issues for you and warping your perspective. Trauma can even be smaller events that occurred over time to create a similar result - pain and self-limiting beliefs and behaviors.

Trauma can be the root of problems such as

• people-pleasing and difficulty standing up for yourself

• difficulty knowing how you feel when something bothers you, and/or not feeling justified in speaking up when it does

• avoidance: of conflict, of social situations, of taking risks - the list goes on. This one is BIG

• being grumpy, irritable, and “snappy”

• fear of abandonment or, conversely, feeling “trapped” when in relationships

• over-achieving and perfectionism

• feeling “not good enough” or “unlovable”