Trauma is defined not by the event(s) that happen to us, but by the response our nervous system has to those events (if you missed Part 1, check it out to learn more about the function of the nervous system). By this definition, what is experienced as traumatic for one person may not be experienced that way by another. To understand this, let’s break down the difference between stress and trauma.

Stress is an experience that every person is familiar with, to varying degrees. Stress and trauma can be thought to exist along a spectrum: all trauma is stress, but not all stress is trauma. Hillary McBride, in her book The Wisdom of Your Body, writes, “Stress is an activation of the mind-body systems in response to experiencing a stressor - illness, traffic, death, important events, big life changes, natural disaster, or even the anticipation of those things - together with the perception of threat posed by that stressor….Whether or not we perceive a stressor as threatening is unique to each of us, usually determined by a combination of past experiences, genetics, and the meaning we give to something.” A stress response is necessary for survival but can be damaging when it is experienced for too long or too often or when we fear it. McBride goes on to write, “A stressful event becomes a trauma when we feel overwhelmed and powerless.” 

Take the example of the snake in Part 1. The initial response that you had to seeing a poisonous snake cross your path was a stress response. Your sympathetic nervous system kicked into gear in order to guarantee your survival, however, once you were physically safe from the threat of the snake, your parasympathetic nervous system (hopefully) took over and brought you to a more regulated place. When you keep re-experiencing this event, for example, by seeing every stick that lies in your path as a poisonous snake, you have then shifted into a trauma response. Your body has gotten stuck in the sympathetic nervous system response, which has overridden any rational thought processes that would help you understand that you are actually safe, not threatened. Your body experiences a threat where one no longer exists, and you feel out of control and powerless.

Trauma can include what we may normally think of as “traumatic events,” such as a natural disaster, war, sexual assault, a tragic car accident, etc. However, trauma can also include non-life-threatening injuries, emotional and spiritual abuse, racism, bullying, loss of a significant person, unplanned expenses, job change, divorce, death of a pet, moving, etc. Again, trauma is defined by the individual response a person has to an event. Dr. Rick Bradshaw writes, “Trauma occurs when something negative and unexpected happens, and it leaves us feeling confused, overwhelmed, and powerless.” 

Trauma can be a one-time event; but it can also be an event that occurs repeatedly. McBride writes, “When hurts occur repeatedly at the hands of those who are supposed to protect us, or when there is no safe place to return to, we call this complex trauma… It often means that we never learned it was safe to trust, which leaves us feeling desperately alone inside without knowing how to be connected.” Because trauma, by definition, makes you feel out of control and powerless, children, especially in the pre-verbal years (typically 0-2 years old), are especially vulnerable to experiences of trauma, both singular traumatic events as well as on-going, complex trauma. During the ages of 0-2, the brain and body are developing at an extremely rapid rate, and trauma has an especially potent impact on the developing brain. For more information about the long-term effects of trauma in children, check out the groundbreaking research done on Adverse Childhood Experiences.  

Next week, we’ll look at the effects of trauma on the mind and body.

If you believe you have experienced trauma, and are struggling to cope, please reach out to a trauma therapist, either myself (by scheduling a free consultation) or someone else.

To read the previous posts in this series:

Part 1