Trauma (AKA: Difficult Life Experiences) and your Relationship(s)
Written by Spencer Dutson, LAMFT, EMDR Trained Therapist
Okay, so I used the word “trauma” in the blog title, but for the purpose of this post, I want to instead use the words, “difficult life experiences,” to describe trauma. When most of us hear the word, “trauma,” we think, “oh, I’ve never been to war, or survived a horrific car accident, etc., so this doesn’t apply to me.” However, as I discussed in a previous post, trauma is what it is because of how we experience/perceive it. That’s why you and a friend can be in a car accident and one leaves the car with PTSD-like symptoms and the other doesn’t. Because you experience it differently.
So, how does this relate to your relationship(s)? Well, to discuss that, let me first start by giving you an example of how our brains work when under stress.
Snake on the Trail
Imagine with me that you are hiking the Wind Caves or the Crimson Trail up Logan Canyon (two of my favorite hikes!). When you get to the part where there are switchbacks, you make a sharp turn to continue climbing and find yourself face-to-face with a rattlesnake. Before that moment you couldn’t hear it or see it, so you are caught completely off guard.
What do you do?! Perhaps you scream a bit and jump back and run the opposite way. Maybe you pick up a rock and throw it at the snake to try and kill it. Or you might even just stay perfectly still, frozen in place, hoping that the snake won’t smell you and will just slither it’s nasty body away (ya, I hate snakes).
Whatever you do, your first response is driven by your “reptile brain”, or the inner parts of your brain that are responsible for automatic functions to keep you alive (i.e. fight, flight, freeze responses, hunger cues, sex drive, your heart beat, etc.). This is called the first appraisal and it happens within 100 milliseconds of the initial stimulus (in this case the snake). The rest of your brain responds to the stimulus within 600 milliseconds, what is called the second appraisal.
If it was me in that situation, I would see the snake, scream, jump, and run back the other direction as fast as I could. But let’s say that before I even hit the ground from the jump, my brain has time for that second appraisal and the rest of my brain recognizes the snake as a stick. Ya, it was never a snake at all! Yet I thought it was and responded accordingly. So, even though I now know it’s a stick, my body is still responding to the fact that I thought it was a killer rattlesnake. I may try to keep going, walking it off and telling myself that I’m okay, but that doesn’t change the fact that my body is still activated (increased heart rate, rapid breathing, etc.).
If this situation happens to you, you may not want to go back on that trail for a while if at all. You experienced something difficult that then shapes how you act. So, let’s apply this to your relationship(s).
Snakes and Your Relationship
Relationally, you can have that “snake on the trail” experience. When you get in a fight with your partner, when your kid comes home way past curfew without any updates, when you are abandoned. All of these and more, send the message that, at best, this situation isn’t safe, and at worst, this person isn’t safe.
I see it all the time with the couples that I work with! The individuals in the relationship are each caught in a cycle of mutually defending themselves and reacting to the other person. Their partner (and what they do) become the “snake on the trail” that sends them into an automatic response, often leading to more pain and/or isolation. If one or both members of the couple have a history of previous difficult life experiences, then that only adds to the complexity and intensity of the reaction. In other words, the more snakes you encounter, the stronger your protective mechanisms become.
Healing
Regardless of where these survival reactions come from (either difficult life experiences in the relationship or from without), please recognize that they are impacting the way you show up in your relationship(s). Healing comes from re-establishing safety, and safety can most readily come by doing the following:
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Being able to identify the negative cycles you get stuck in relationally. For example, being able to say (usually after you’ve stopped it), “When ____________ happened, I felt ______________ and thought _______________. When I was thinking and feeling that way, I then did __________________, and I noticed you then may have been thinking/feeling _________________ and you in return did ________________.”
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Stop the negative cycle. Work as a team to notice you are stuck and take a break to individually calm down.
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Come back together to resolve the problem. True conflict resolution comes from being able to express your feelings, mutually give empathy, and identify and meet each other’s core needs (i.e. “I need _________________ from you when I’m stuck or to not even get there in the first place”).
Changing these patterns can be difficult, so reach out to us for help when you need!