What is Developmental Trauma?

Developmental Trauma, Defined:

Often when we think of trauma, the first definition we recall is that of shock trauma. Shock trauma refers to a specific disruptive and distressing incident or incidents which cause the individual to become highly activated in a fear response. The individual can become stuck in this fear response when similar events or reminders show up later in life. Commonly, individuals who experience shock trauma are clinically organized under a diagnosis called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 

Those who experience developmental trauma, on the other hand, may not have a single traumatizing event they can point to, but ongoing experiences which occurred during their childhood and adolescence.

Laurence Heller and Aline LaPierre state that,

“developmental trauma causes ongoing autonomic activation that forms chronic patterns that lead to physiological and psychological developmental deficits. In developmental trauma – which can include specific shock traumas at an early age, profound ongoing misattunement, such as attachment trauma, as well as ongoing abuse and/or neglect - the physiological response may be similar to that in shock trauma, but the dynamics of the trauma itself are quite different.” 

Because developmental trauma is relational in focus, it creates difficulty with both being with yourself and being with others. If you’ve experienced developmental trauma, you may have challenges with self-regulation and forming connected, healthy relationships with others. 

Impact

When you think about experiencing a threat, you may think about the fight, flight, or freeze response. You may think that you would engage in one of those three responses and then the threat will eventually be resolved.

Developmental trauma can be especially difficult, because the threat is always present and so the shock, attachment trauma, misattunement, etc always persists. Your body and mind never get to turn off from being so highly activated. That level of high arousal in your nervous system simply becomes the baseline. Biologically the body cannot tolerate this state forever, so Laurence Heller and LaPierre state that “locked in perpetual, painful high arousal, the only alternative, the fallback position, is to go into a freeze state, which infants and small children accomplish by numbing themselves.” So individuals commonly experience hypervigilance and then disconnection / dissociation.

Individuals who experienced developmental trauma may experience: 

• Disconnection between mind and body

• Difficulty identifying their feelings and internal experience

• Experiences of dissociation

• Unstable sense of self

• Difficulty relaxing

• Preference of withdrawing from others 

• Challenges developing healthy relationships and attachments with others

Healing 

It is important to first normalize the fact that developmental trauma exists. Without specific events to point to, it can be harder for someone to understand what they’ve endured or even consider it trauma. Being able to name an ongoing experience as developmental trauma has power. It allows the individual to depersonalize. They can start to tell their own narrative. They can begin to create some integration of “this happened to me” rather than simply believing something was wrong with them. 

Without integrating a traumatic experience, it is difficult to move beyond the stuck place. Individuals with unprocessed trauma can repeat unfulfilling relationships and continue to self-abandon. It is important for the individual to develop a coherent story of what happened to them and also develop awareness of what happened somatically. How did their body react when this trauma was occurring? How does it continue to respond to similar situations now? Creating this sort of mindfulness helps to build insight, eventually restore the mind-body connection, and increase the individual’s capacity for having relationships with themselves and others.

Recommended Read: Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship by Laurence Heller, PhD and Aline LaPierre PsyD.

You Need to Rest

Why is Rest Important?

We live in a culture that overemphasizes productivity. A culture that confuses productivity with worthiness. So often we hear, “you can rest when…[insert accomplished goal, outcome, or result.” This is damaging because it makes us believe that rest is earned. This is untrue. Rest is not earned. You are always deserving of rest. Your nervous system relies on it.

If you exist in a perpetual state of busyness, you have learned to ignore your body. Even though your mind can deny being stressed, your body may hold onto the experience. Your body registers stress and overtime this can result in somatic symptoms like headache, muscle ache, back pain, stomach ache, and so on.

If you continue to ignore your limits, you may be headed towards chronic stress and burnout.

What is Burnout?

Great question! When we define burnout, we think about Herbert Freudenberger’s definition three-part definition:

1. Emotional exhaustion — the fatigue that comes from caring too much, for too long

2. Depersonalization — the depletion of empathy, caring, and compassion

3. Decreased sense of accomplishment — an unconquerable sense of futility or feeling that nothing you do makes any difference.

Despite how grave this definition is, burnout is actually a very common experience. Especially in the U.S. If you find yourself relating to this definition, don’t lose hope. There are ways you can cultivate rest. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed at how to do this, please reach out to a loved one or mental health professional.

What Does Rest Look Like?

Rest can look different for everyone. The first thing to start doing to cultivate rest is to use mindfulness to increase your ability to truly pay attention to what’s happening to you moment-to-moment. Mindfulness can help you to gradually develop a practice of checking in with your mind, your body, and eventually being able to be better attuned to yourself moment-to-moment. You can then use your feelings or sensations as guideposts to uncover your needs. Maybe you can find relief from offering your body some deep breaths, a cold splash of water on your face, a compassionate gesture. It will be different for everyone but when you slow down, you will be able to find something restorative.

Zabie Yamasaki validates that rest is different for each of us and deeply personal. She offers the following examples of rest for you to consider:

• “Postponing or cancelling something on your calendar when you’re having a hard week

• Delegating

• Taking a mental health day

• Releasing the pressure to respond to everyone else’s sense of urgency (e-mails, texts, social media). Honoring the urgency for rest

• Setting limits on how often you engage with trauma related material

• Sitting down, resting your gaze, and listening to the sound of your own breath

• Being discerning with what you say yes to

• Exploring not checking your phone upon waking and letting the outside world dictate your mood before you even wake up.

• Assessing your bandwidth and capacity at the beginning of the week and being selective with scheduling and intentional with restorative time.“

How is my nervous system affected by stress?

The nervous system is “the major controlling, regulatory, and communicating system in the body.”

Your nervous system deserves rest. When you keep pushing yourself, you ultimately skip the final step of the stress cycle: coping. Pushing past resolving the stress, leaves your mind and body stuck in an alarmed state. The goal of completing the stress cycles is to move yourself from an alarmed state back into a relaxed state. You can navigate from tension to calm in a gentle way. Doing this will help your mind and your body to feel centered again.

In their book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, co-authors Emily and Amelia Nagoski recommend the following 6 evidence-based strategies for completing the stress cycle:

1. Breathing

2. Positive Social Interaction

3. Laughter

4. Affection

5. Crying

6. Creativity

All of these experiences, help to soothe our nervous system and can provide release.

In an Ideal World

We develop a strong mind-body connection, a sense of attunement to our inner experience and our needs.

We revolutionize our culture to value rest; unpairing productivity from worthiness.

We understand the uniqueness of individuals and honor that rest looks different for everyone.

"Wellness is not a state of being—it’s a state of action. It is the freedom to oscillate through the cycles of being human. Real-world wellness is messy, complicated, and not always accessible. If you sometimes feel overwhelmed and exhausted, that doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong; it just means you’re moving through the process. Grant your body permission to be imperfect and listen to your own experience."

- Drs. Amelia and Emily Nagoski from their book, "Burnout."