In my article, “You’re Wounded, not Broken,” I introduced the concept of trauma as a wound. Here, we will continue to explore both the science of trauma and the evidence that you can recover.
Characteristics of Trauma Wounds
Trauma is an unhealed wound. And, like other wounds, trauma can develop “scar tissue.”
Scar tissue will provide a protective factor for physical wounds. The scar tissue knits your skin together, facilitating healing. With trauma “wounds,” scar tissue may lead to you developing what might be described as a “thick skin”.
Meaning, you might not seem bothered by things, or you appear to shoulder challenges with true grit. I say “appear,” because when I work with such people in counseling, I regularly find out that they were suffering, but didn’t show it.
So they appeared to navigate challenges well. Their scar tissue in this case is armor to keep them from truly accessing that suffering. They keep on keeping on. But there are other characteristics of trauma wounds that are not as helpful.
Scar Tissue is Hard
So think of this in a person. If you harden you are not as open or vulnerable as you would be if you didn’t have the wound. How might this show up in less than optimal ways?
You might be intolerant of other’s emotions, you might perceive them as “needy,” you may minimize others’ concerns as no big deal. You “harden” to others in this way.
Or, you harden toward your-Self. Dismissing or denying your needs, dreams, desires or drives as unimportant or excessive. People with trauma wounds may put other’s needs in front of their own consistently. As if the scar tissue has blocked you from self-care.
There are myriad ways the hardness of scar tissue shows up in people with trauma. Can you think of any? Hint: most of the behaviors are not adaptable. You can see how the behaviors come from trauma reactions, not healthy choices. They can diminish the person’s overall health and well-being.
Scar Tissue doesn’t have Sensations
There are no nerve endings in scar tissue. I have a hip replacement and in the area of my scar, I can’t feel anything. People with trauma wounds might have diminished capability to feel and/or provide compassionate care to themselves if they do.
How might people with scar tissue from trauma wounds behave instead? They tend to minimize.
Claiming everything is “fine” when clearly it is not. What’s more, they may appear flat, emotionless. They almost always tell me, “Laura, I don’t have any trauma in my background.”
To this end, I ask new clients to fill out an assessment for anxiety or depression. A subset of them score very low when their anxiety or depression is clearly high.
What is happening?
While the answer is complicated, the general answer is they never learned to make the “u-turn” inward to attend and befriend to their interior landscape. No one showed them how.
That, in itself, is a potential trauma. The trauma of omission: what you needed for healthy development, you did not get. As a result? You don’t “sense” your needs or you don’t pay attention to them when you have them.
Scar Tissue doesn’t Grow
Flesh normally grows. A person carrying trauma tends to get stuck. They don’t grow beyond the stage of development in which the trauma occurred. Parts of them get frozen in that moment in time without help.
So if your partner says to you, “What is the big deal, you are acting like such a baby.” While that is not a kind or conscious way of giving feedback, it might be an indicator that you are reacting from an earlier stage in development. Your “scar tissue” is showing in that moment.
You could be stuck at a very early stage if your trauma comes from childhood. This doesn’t mean you don’t function like an adult. It means, that you might not have developed the skills you need to navigate adult challenges. Your trauma wound keeps you stuck in the stage of development where you first lacked an adult to help you get your needs met in healthy ways.
Trauma wounds lead to trauma reactions
Many challenging behaviors come from trauma wounds. People aren’t consciously choosing the behaviors.
Their brains react, not respond, in the moment, based on learnings from the past. Outside of conscious awareness, the brain is “choosing” to react. And these Trauma reactions often come with challenging behavior.
Yet, I can help you learn to use your mind to change your brain. To bring in the contextual cues that your mind can access to tell your brain, “Hey, its 2025 not 1985. We are safe.” Let’s try another way to relate to what is happening to us.
This alone does NOT heal the trauma wound. It’s something to access as you are healing it, and to keep the wound from re-opening.
Lack of Response Flexibility
When people are traumatized they tend to lose response flexibility in the brain. That means you read cues and react inappropriately. You lose the capacity to try out, consider, think of multiple responses. For instance, a client would start to shake and want to run away when her infant howled.
Logically she understood: the baby is hungry, wet, tired, or just needs me. She’s helpless. So why the reaction? We figured out when her alcoholic father would yell and scream, she would run and hide in the basement to avoid his wrath.
Her brain was picking up cues: crying, yelling, screaming and did what it had always done. Send the message: run, hide! The brain did not distinguish the here and now (it’s a baby) from the there and then (it’s my scary alcoholic father).
People with trauma tend to react from a more primitive part of the brain than the prefrontal cortex which is where response flexibility resides. They lose the ability to discern the there and then from the here and now to choose a response. Instead, they react in ways they always have.
Lack of Connection to Body
People with trauma wounds also lose connection to their body. Notice that. Can you sense your body? Can you access sensations inside your body or do you mostly sense numbness? And if so, is it only the uncomfortable sensations? Can you feel ease, stillness, calm, and satisfaction as body sensations?
Traumatized folks have a hard time with interoception: connecting to body sensations and feelings. I like to say that many people with trauma, especially childhood trauma, tend to live from the neck up.
They are very smart, logical, and driven. But they don’t attend to their bodies very well. Often, they eat poorly and don’t exercise. Or they over-exercise, not attending to what their body needs. They may even self-harm with alcohol, drugs, and cutting because they don’t relate to their bodies at all.
Shame Spirals
People with trauma wounds tend to have a shame-based view of themselves. They believe they are flawed. Damaged goods. Broken.
When something “bad” happens, they immediately believe they are at fault. They are inherently bad. Trauma also shapes their view of the world, i.e., it’s not safe, I cannot trust others, I cannot handle it, or I am not good enough. So trauma carries shame and blame. I’m bad, the world is bad.
And sadly, trauma wounds are passed down unwittingly through the generations. But that can change with help from a professional.
You did the best you could
Because, there is wisdom in trauma.
First, trauma reactions are an adaptation. You learned this behavior because at one time you believed it kept you safe. And it might have! So the trauma reactions, the behaviors you don’t like in yourself now? They may have been wise choices by your brain at some moment in time.
If that sounds wild to you, consider: What would have happened to you in childhood if you didn’t make this adaptation? Could you have avoided that outcome when you were a child? The answer is likely, no.
Understanding Trauma Wounds: a compassionate gaze
Dr. Gabor Mate shared a powerful example of this. He was working with an indigenous woman who said at 70 she was ashamed that she forgot her native language.
She was sent to a school where she was not allowed to speak anything but English. When she accidentally spoke in her native tongue she was beaten. She said she was ashamed as an adult that she could not remember how to speak her native language.
Dr. Mate asked, “What would have happened to you then if you tried to speak it? Beaten. So you were scared? Terrified. So that was a healthy adaptation. Speak English. Forget your language so you don’t accidentally speak it.”
Dr. Mate continued, “And, now? The fear is still associated with the native language, so your wound is blocking you because it hasn’t healed.”
Then she was ashamed for not fighting back. He walked her through exploring what would have happened if she did that.
She finally accepted: “I did the best I could, didn’t I? I was a child.” She was a child. And she was resilient. She adapted in order to survive.
Trauma is not rational
I cannot tell you how many examples like this I have. It’s always so, so hard to listen to amazing, successful, beautiful, kind, lovely humans disparaging themselves for childhood adaptations. For things that were not their fault. Yet, they take on the burden of blame and it festers as shame.
Let me share another example from my work. Meet “Alice,” a 30-something incredible woman. Graduated from a top tier University. Loves animals. Fights for human rights. Incredible artist. Giving. Loving. Has myriad interests she’s explored: improv, politics, animal training, music, design. I could go on and on.
She experienced sexual abuse as a child and doesn’t “feel real,” like a human. As a result, she has trouble caring for herself as well as she does animals or other humans she loves. If there is no self to care for, why would she, right?
She can logically understand that she didn’t do anything to deserve the abuse. That she is real. A human. And yet, she still carries negative cognitions that drive her behaviors.
Irrational, subconscious, self-referencing beliefs related to her abuse such as I am worthless, I don’t belong, people who love me will hurt me, therefore I need to be in control.
Telling people, “But you are so great and look at all your gifts, character traits, and behaviors that show you are amazing,” doesn’t heal trauma wounds. People who do so are well-intentioned. Heck, I feel the urge to blurt out things in session myself. Reassuring trauma survivors is kind, don’t get me wrong. It just will not resolve the trauma.
That’s why with trauma you might have to do some therapy to heal the wound. You wouldn’t expect your friend to heal your broken arm, right? You go to a doctor with special training.
As well-intentioned as friends are, they don’t have the training trauma therapists do. And, I might add, talking is not what trauma therapists do. We use tools. I practice EMDR, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and Family Systems theory (IFS/Parts work) to help people heal.
The wound(s) we experience from trauma teaches us we are going in the wrong direction. Rather than suppressing trauma, let’s use it as a teacher to help us heal.
Please read my article, “You’re Wounded, Not Broken,” to help you develop the compassion you need to heal yourself. And, check out my YouTube channel for video content that might help you take the exquisite risk of enlisting help. If you’d like, I offer virtual therapy throughout California. Reach out.