Trauma

“I am NOT TRAUMATIZED!”

These were the words that came out of my mouth during my first session with Aaron.  I had been through two other therapists before they unexpectedly had to move so I was starting to become familiar with this word, “trauma”.  I guess Aaron was no different in that in our initial session, he tried to tie back some of the unwanted behaviors to trauma. Because why else would I have said that?

I understand now that my definition of trauma then was different than it is now. Trauma was something terrible, horrible and generally accepted as a huge deal.  War is trauma. A violent kidnapping and rape is trauma. And these are. But, think of them at capital T trauma.

I was pretty defensive of my childhood when I first started therapy. Therapist Dave tried to get me to dig into my family of origin. I perceived this was an exercise to criticize and break down all the horrible things that my parents did poorly.  I simply wasn’t interested in participating in that. I remember going through some workbooks with him and only writing what I believed could be presented in the best light. I had a very good childhood and I was going to prove it.

And this is where I was during my first session with Aaron...no interest in going down childhood of origin stuff. There was no trauma there. And trauma just wasn’t me. That was for victims, and I wasn’t a victim.

I don’t even know when or how the stuff between my brother even got brought up. I know I talked about it some with Dave, because 2013 happened. There was a lot of additional trauma in 2013 tied to the childhood trauma I was in denial over. And some of it was fresh trauma, including the unexpected passing of my mom.

But when or how this got brought up with Aaron, I have no idea.

The main focus of my seeing Aaron was to handle the immediate crisis in my marriage. We were in such a low state with deep emotional pain. I was in deep grief over the loss of my mom.  I was pregnant with my second son at the time, and Aaron questioned if the baby was my husband’s.  I started in some group therapies and got to know people in the recovery network which was crucial to my not feeling alone. I guess this is when I started tellin my story more,

During first step newcomer meetings, my quick story usually started like this:

I discovered masturbation when I was young. Like really young. It didn’t have a sexual drive to it, at least initially but it’s been a habit for as long as I can remember.  Then I had a brother who showed some sexual interest in me as a young child.  This lasted for years and when that sexual attention ended, I turned to pornography. I kept this behavior all as secret and lived a life where I was weighed down by Shame and self loathing and just trying to navigate adolescence as I understood it.  I finally disclosed everything at age 17 and just considered this to be my ending point.  I was not going to engage in that behavior anymore and there was no reason to think about any of it because I had forgiven all parties and it was time to move on.

Then my newcomer share would evolve into how the beast of addictive and compulsive behavior kept coming up for me.

And now I can see, and admit how much more it ties back to my childhood.  Specifically how it tied back to that one liner, “I had a brother who showed some sexual interest in me as a child.”  It was so much more than one line of my life.  Maybe not capital T trauma. But “little t” trauma over and over and over and over again.  It adds up.