Are all of us traumatized? You'd definitely think so if you're following the popular trends in mental health. As a trauma therapist, I have a real appreciation for how devastating trauma can be and how lifesaving proper trauma treatment is. However, not every hurt or emotional wound is a trauma. Believing that it is can be dangerous.
To understand why it's dangerous, we need to understand what is attractive about perceiving problems to be traumatic. Implicit in calling something a trauma is a validation of the suffering you are experiencing. Trauma is when the nervous system restructures itself in order to survive overwhelming experiences. That restructured state persists after the traumatic events pass. There's nothing defective about you that you feel so conflicted, afraid, ashamed, angry, resentful or overwhelmed. It's a result of what happened to you, and those feelings and actions that now befuddle you are what helped you survive the traumatic events.
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