Communicating and Collaborating About Minor Trauma Symptoms
Minor and infrequent trauma symptoms can be the most difficult to work with. You can have long periods of feeling resourced and grounded, then suddenly notice that your vision is starting to narrow, your face has become tense, and you are beginning to shut down. While you recognize that your PTSD symptoms have lessened, they still limit your ability to connect with others and enjoy the moment.
When you have done consistent and effective healing and personal work throughout your life, it’s disappointing when minor trauma symptoms persist. When you trust yourself to manage minor trauma symptoms, you sometimes choose an activity even though you know it will trigger those symptoms. You decide the activity is worth the effort it takes for you to manage those symptoms. Other times, you make decisions so that you avoid activating them.
Although there is a much wider understanding of trauma in the general public than ever before, you might still find people in your life who don't understand it. They might express this lack of understanding by pressuring you into things, dismissing your concerns, or telling you to get over it. In addition, you might have difficulty accepting yourself. You might feel shame and embarrassment, and you wish you could cut off that part of yourself that reacts in ways that limit your life.
It's especially difficult to communicate and collaborate with others when your own inner dialogue is not compassionate. Perhaps one of the most difficult things about minor trauma symptoms is that they show up even though you are grounded and content most of the time. In these moments, it’s easy to become impatient with yourself. This is the moment that it’s important to remember all the progress and healing you've done, and how your quality of life has really changed as a result.
Relating to yourself with compassion usually involves working with shame. It's helpful to remember that many have the same experience of minor lingering trauma symptoms. The most effective strategy for dissolving shame is to talk with others who have similar experiences and have found their way to acceptance. Shame dissolves in the light of compassionate others.
Continual acknowledgment that these trauma symptoms are not who you are will also help dissipate shame. Greeting your trauma symptoms like you would greet an old friend is ideal. For example, your inner dialogue might sound something like this, “Hello nervous system, I notice you have some fear about this. That's okay. It's uncomfortable, but we can be with it. Even though fear is here, we can notice together that we are actually safe and nothing bad is happening.”
Perhaps the most critical thing about relating to your trauma symptoms is to remind yourself that the symptoms do not necessarily mean that you're in danger. When you can name symptoms as simply old habits of your nervous system and meet yourself with compassion and acceptance, it may still be uncomfortable but you don't suffer.
This recognition requires energy and attention — and you get to choose how you want to use your energy. Sometimes a trigger is a surprise, but mostly you know the common triggers. This means you get to decide whether you want to engage in an activity that you know will trigger you. You choose whether or not to practice with an activated nervous system. It is in this decision that you might find yourself collaborating with others.
Those unfamiliar with trauma can feel disoriented when the grounded and resourced you to which they have become accustomed suddenly freezes in reaction to something that doesn't bother them at all. Not understanding what's happening, they can be quick to accuse you of being dramatic or too sensitive. They might try to talk you out of your symptoms by explaining the situation or giving you information. In the worst case scenario, they become angry and tell you that you're ruining their fun day. It can be so painful to not receive the support and understanding you need in that situation.
The more you are relating to yourself with acceptance and compassion, the more you will be able to communicate in a clear and calm way while maintaining your boundaries. Here are three ways to approach that communication.
Focus on what you do want. When fear takes over, it directs most of your attention toward what you don’t want. When you are relating to your experience with compassion, you maintain access to a broader perspective, which means remembering what is really helpful and communicating about that. Here are some examples:
“I want to hang out here and draw. You go ahead and check out the suspension bridge.”
“I’m going to sit here on the bench and offer a loving-kindness prayer while you join the chanting with the crowd.”
“I’m going to take care of my nervous system by walking down this main street rather than cutting through the alley.”
Communicate about your experience in a matter-of-fact way. Those unfamiliar with trauma usually don’t understand that it is not volitional. Let them know how it works for you in a matter-of-fact way. Remember that it is not your job to get them to understand. It is up to them to bring curiosity and to work to understand. For you, this might mean being open to the grief that comes when someone doesn’t get it and isn’t willing to accept your experience as valid. Here is an example of describing your experience:
“If you are truly curious, I can share with you what happens.” (If you hear an authentic yes, go ahead and continue.) “While I don’t make a decision about these trauma symptoms getting triggered, I can, at least, watch it happen and discern if there is any real danger or not. Once I discern there is no real danger, the symptoms may still not go away as long as the trigger is there. It’s like when you feel really sick and you test negative for the coronavirus. You are happy about the test result, but you still feel sick. With my trauma symptoms, “sick” means I start to feel numb and far away from everything. I can’t enjoy what’s happening anymore. Sometimes thoughts of violent or terrible things come into my mind, so I have to focus in a certain way to manage and prevent them. I find it hard to focus, but I can still engage self-soothing and other skills I have for staying grounded while it’s happening.”
Highlight healthy differentiation (this is relationship competency #12) and offer reassurance regarding autonomy. So many of us grow up in emotionally enmeshed environments in which, if someone is unhappy or struggling, we think we are supposed to be unhappy also and only attend to them. With healthy differentiation others don't take on your emotions or your struggle. They are confident that they can show caring while continuing to enjoy themselves with whatever is happening. If they have some access to healthy differentiation in their life, a gentle reminder will go a long way. It might sound like one of these responses:
“I know you care about me. I also care about you and want you to enjoy this event. Please trust that I can care for myself and really want you to enjoy this in whatever way is right for you. I still feel connected to you even when we are not sharing the same emotional experience.”
“I'm choosing what I would like to do. I support you choosing what's right for you. Your autonomy matters to me. I will still feel love and connection with you when you make a choice that's different from my own.”
If the other person operates primarily from enmeshment, encouraging their healthy differentiation likely will not be helpful. Instead, they may blame you for limiting them or ruining their experience. This basically means that they are not able to have a healthy boundary between your emotional experience and their own. Boundaries like this require personal work and emotional security and cannot be achieved by reminders. Likewise, without some sense of healthy differentiation, reassurance around autonomy may not be very helpful.
Practice
Do you have someone in your life with whom you'd like to be able to communicate more about minor trauma symptoms? Choose one of the three types of communication above and set your intention to try it out the next time you're together.
