When you imagine trauma survivors living with the aftereffects of their experiences, you might picture nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks or an unwillingness to talk about what happened. While traumatic events can sometimes leave a lingering influence, these effects aren’t always easy to identify.
Sometimes, people who escape long-term, complex trauma develop perfectionistic tendencies, people-pleasing, hypervigilance or choose unhealthy relationships. After years of living this way, you may start mistaking these patterns as personality traits instead of recognizing them as the survival strategies they are.
September is CPTSD Awareness Month, making it a valuable opportunity to recognize some of the less obvious ways prolonged trauma can continue affecting your life.
What Is Complex Trauma?
Complex trauma generally refers to the effects of repeated, prolonged or multiple traumatic experiences, particularly those involving inescapable interpersonal relationships or circumstances. Childhood abuse or neglect, domestic violence, chronic instability, exploitation and repeated exposure to threatening environments are some examples.
Many of the best-known hallmarks of PTSD also characterize CPTSD – such as intrusive memories, avoidance and the persistent feeling of being under threat. However, people with this disorder also struggle with their self-image, relationships and emotional regulation.
Not everyone who experiences complex trauma develops CPTSD, and you don’t necessarily have it even if the patterns described in this blog post seem familiar. However, understanding how trauma can influence your behavior may help you view your longstanding struggles from a different perspective.
You May Become Extremely Independent
Independence is generally a positive trait, but it’s also an example of the misguided survival strategies trauma survivors often adopt to protect their well-being. You may prefer handling everything yourself if repeated instances of disappointment, neglect, control or broken trust taught you never to depend on anyone else.
It can be hard to imagine yourself asking for help, even when you know you’re getting close to reaching a crisis point. The thought of revealing a perceived vulnerability can be frightening if people in your life routinely betrayed or harmed you.
Participating in trauma-informed treatment doesn’t require you to surrender your hard-won independence. Instead, it can involve discovering that healthy relationships allow room for autonomy and support.
You Constantly Monitor Other People’s Emotions
Surviving complex trauma can also make you exceptionally sensitive to the moods of people around you. Perhaps you immediately notice when someone’s tone of voice changes or spend hours overanalyzing a conversation for signs that they are upset with you.
You may apologize automatically, avoid disagreements or change your behavior to prevent other people from becoming angry. This pattern is fawning – a learned response in which you equate peace with safety.
While your ability to read other people may have been genuinely protective at one point in your life, it becomes problematic when you focus so intently on everyone else’s emotional state that you lose self-awareness.
Perfectionism Can Become a Form of Self-Protection
Sometimes, perfectionism stems from the belief that making mistakes isn’t safe. You work harder, prepare longer and hold yourself to impossibly high standards to avoid criticism, rejection, punishment or unpredictable reactions.
Unfortunately, perfectionism rarely produces lasting confidence. Every success raises the standard, while mistakes seem to confirm your deepest-seated fears about being unworthy. Though your colleagues and peers may believe you are an exceptionally driven person, they don’t see the considerable anxiety, shame, exhaustion and impostor syndrome you deal with behind closed doors.
Why You May Not Realize You’ve Experienced Trauma
Women often minimize their traumatic experiences by comparing themselves to others and concluding that they don’t merit help or sympathy. However, recognizing the default strategies you’ve used to shield yourself from harm can profoundly change the way you approach healing.
Sometimes, there is a fine line between learned adaptations and personality traits, and it’s not always easy to recognize even if you put in the work. The goal of seeking trauma-informed therapy isn’t to excuse harmful behaviors or shift blame to other people. It’s to give yourself permission to understand why you developed specific mechanisms and determine whether they still serve you.
Rising Roads Recovery’s women-only, trauma-informed programs welcome you to explore the connections between your struggles with mental health, substance use, relationships, process disorders and your self-esteem. Instead of addressing each challenge in isolation, we will introduce you to the whole person behind your symptoms as you develop healthier ways of responding to emotions, relationships and stress.
You are more than a collection of survival tactics. Contact us today to learn how we can help you pave the way toward a healthier, more fulfilling future.