How Can Unresolved Trauma Get In The Way of Your Relationships
Either if you are in a relationship already, or if you are getting to know someone new, what most of the times we are looking for is for a deep connection with others…
And especially if you are only getting to know the other person, you tend to say that you had a normal childhood, and that most of the times everything was fine….
However… how do you explain when all of a sudden you find yourself reacting very strongly and differently to an incident that genuinely has nothing to do with your partner?
For example, you find yourself reacting very strongly when your partner decides to spend frequently time with colleagues, and without consciously realising it, this incident reminds you of your childhood and how your mum was not present because she was in pain… she was distracted and chronically anxious therefore there was hardly any emotional connection and you never felt as a priority for her…
When is someone ready to make the connection, how can you handle it on a personal level as well as on an interpersonal level? How do you stop yourself from reacting so strongly and almost forgetting that the other person in front of you is not your mother?
The truth is, that by the time we are grown ups, painful experiences have been pushed away and our reactions to these or similar experiences have become “normal” or “anticipated”. Without realising most of the times, any event or a person can remind us of those painful experiences of the past, and then we tend to minimise it, to deny it or even rationalise, as that is how we have learned to handle painful experiences.
It’s difficult for most of us to relate with words such as shame, rage, pain or even wider unresolved trauma as we have managed to compartmentalise similar instances, so we don’t tend to identify with those. Besides we are here now, so we must be invincible and strong…
Until depression or anxiety hits; and then it’s back to the same old loop again; the one that we had so effectively pushed away.
The effects of trauma, rage, shame or pain manage to affect all other areas of our lives; for example how we might feel about ourselves, to anticipate that we are going to be abandoned; or how our personality traits influence our behaviours and habits. It can also interfere with physical symptoms, such as brain fog, gut issues, knee and back pain, leading to sickness and overall dysregulation.
Relationship conflicts are often the result of unresolved trauma, whether it’s getting involved with emotionally unavailable partners, or finding ways to numb your emotions because you wouldn’t have it any other way.
Bear in mind that the trigger might be different each time. For example instances where in the past you only felt love and admiration towards your partner, today it filled you with frustration and agitation…
Another instance might be that although you find yourself having checked off so many of the boxes that you’d dreamed of since you were a kid- you still feel like there is something essential in your being that is lost or missing; or even after years of being in relationships, you feel like you have finally met a person who feels right, but instead you still feel unhappy, sad and detached; you feel nothing.
Then because of your behaviour the other person tunes out, and then there is another cycle of disappointment, pain, insecurity…
Let’s be clear on a couple of points!
Healthy and relatively stable relationships don’t usually include inconsistent boundaries, communication difficulties, lack of trust, emotional dependency or an inability to be alone…
So what is the definition of trauma:
Trauma is usually defined as an individual’s behaviour and feelings occurring due to a traumatic event, or a series of events that resulted in a lack of safety and ability to cope. However what might be interpreted as traumatic for me, may not be seen as traumatic for someone else. At the same time it’s hugely important for someone to examine his resilience, his potential denial or deciding to self sabotage as a way of escaping or numbing from the pain.
In order to identify something as traumatic it means:
that the event has happened within the last 3-6 months
symptoms have lasted at least a month (and even years) and have created problems in daily functioning
the event happened at the same time or very close to some other major event (job loss, car accident, etc)
when there is a history of any kind of abuse
the current event has brought to the surface some past traumatic event(s)
the event resulted in violating personal safety, belonging and trust.
Healing from unresolved pain isn’t easy. I wish I could tell you it was. The fact is, it takes an incredible amount of motivation and inner strength to stop a cycle and to ditch self-sabotage.
It takes a ridiculous amount of trial and error, because there’s no cut-and-dry way that’s going to work for everyone. It’s a personal choice to choose growth, and it will take time.
PS. If you are interested in reading more about this topic then my go to book would be “How To Do the Work” by Dr Nicole LePera.
