Trauma can impact people in many ways. Single-events with a powerful traumatic impact is what we usually think of when we talk about trauma. Think about the fatal car crash you witness, or witnessing violence toward a person. But another way of experiencing trauma is through small assaults on our feelings of worth and safety that happen often, with impact showing up after years of cumulative pings against our well-being.
What constitutes these small assaults? Example would be:
Small, but frequent comments about our worth or productivity that bring up in us feelings of self-doubt;
Having our wishes repeatedly overlooked, or our hopes forgotten;
Having our values disrespected.
These make up a very small portion of all the ways we can feel small slights. And when these are chronic, they can add up to the experience of trauma.
The pain of trauma is hurtful enough, but its effects don't stop after each infraction of our boundaries. We may start to feel we have to fight to maintain our good self-esteem. Gradual wearing down of our feelings of worth can cause our levels of emotional energy to slowly leak. And if this goes on long enough, we may find we don't have energy left for being creative, for even finding hope for our future.
But there can be hope. Healing trauma, learning to work with the nervous system, building back your emotional energy - these are goals I can help with. I provide trauma therapy, including EMDR. I also provide intergenerational EMDR to help you trace trauma patterns in the family, giving you tools to break the cycle of harmful family patterns.