What is trauma, anyway?

What is trauma, really?

According to the mental health charity Mind: “Going through very stressful, frightening or distressing events is sometimes called trauma. When we talk about emotional or psychological trauma, we might mean: situations or events we find traumatic. how we’re affected by our experiences.”

The key takeaway here is that trauma is personal and subjective. What’s traumatic to one person, isn’t necessarily traumatic to someone else.

Our neurology, our perception of the world, how equipped we are to fit in to the world and how suitable the world is for us – are all major factors which can be the root cause of trauma.

Trauma isn’t always cause by huge, life-changing events such as a road traffic accident, abuse, a major illness or the death of a loved one.

Trauma can be caused by a constant drip-drip-drip of events and situations in our life which leave us feeling confused, hurt, embarrassed, frightened and wary of exposing ourselves to those situations again.

I talk about walking in my son’s shoes, and trying to see the world from his perspective. But truly, I can’t actually do this. I can try my best, but I’ll never really know exactly how he feels, and the things he worries about.

I’ll never truly know his trauma, and how it feels to carry that around on a daily basis. All I can do is listen when he talks, interpret his emotions and reactions the best I can, and not try and view his life through my own lens.

This is so hard to accomplish.

Just because someone doesn’t talk about something, it doesn’t mean they haven’t experienced trauma around it.

As parents of neurodivergent kids and young people, we’ve got to be detectives. Seeing clues, interpreting them, and trying to work out how our child is feeling.

We need to steer clear of creating a narrative whereby we think we KNOW how they feel, and can guess how certain situations and people will affect them.

Take for example yesterday when we went to an adult friend’s birthday party. JJ’s initial reaction was not to go.

He told me he didn’t want the same thing to happen at that party which had happened at previous parties (overstimulation resulting in meltdown, leading to sadness and regret.)

But, he expressed how he *wished* he could go. So I decided to support him in this. Our friends didn’t even have to be asked to make accommodations for him – they designated a quiet space which he could retreat to when he needed. They are GOOD people.

But, it turned out that after half an hour JJ had become severely overstimulated and couldn’t calm himself down. His emotions quickly snowballed and within minutes he was unable to control his actions or emotions.

We made it out, and after many heartbreaking tears of regret, gradually he calmed down. He was so, so sad that the party wasn’t a success. He wanted to be a part of it, so very badly. But for him there are just too many variables for parties to work (noise, bodies, food, distractions…the list goes on).

JJ *knew* this was going to happen. He told me!

His traumatic experiences from previous gatherings and parties were enough to let him voice this to me before he went. Yet I tried to make the situation work for him.

I wanted him to feel included with our friends, and enjoy being part of a typical social activity which the majority of people seem to thoroughly enjoy.

It didn’t work. And deep down I think I knew it wouldn’t. But I’m always hoping that I can change things enough for him to be able to participate. As this makes me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile to help him.

It’s not always going to work. And now JJ has a bit more trauma to add to his feeling about parties and gatherings.

I’m not beating myself up over it, I’ve learned to brush myself down and move on for the most part. Regrets are totally pointless after all.

So what’s the point of this post?

Don’t underestimate how trauma can creep in slowly, via a multitude of seemingly innocuous day-to-day experiences which most people don’t even seem to notice.

Face the trauma with your child if they can, name it if they can, and never underestimate the effect of the tiniest of experiences – and promise them that you will do your utmost so they will never have to be exposed to these situations again.

Of course, they will, you won’t always be able to protect them, that’s just a fact of life. But if we can give our kids the tools, strength and confidence to be able to advocate for themselves and say ‘I’m not doing that, it’s not for me, I can’t do it’ and be proud of themselves for knowing their limits…then that’s a win in my book.

And know when to stop and listen to them, so your own narrative doesn’t take over.