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Is it a Big T Trauma or a Little T Trauma? · RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is produced by my friends at WalkWest.
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  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking to grow your brand and generate leads through podcast or video production, head over to walkwest.com.
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  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's start the show.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: From emotional intelligence through cognitive distortions, certified life and wellness coach Comedy Wood is on a mission to help people see the magnificence of their own unique human spirit.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Through these small bites of self-visualization and self-confidence, you can have healthy relationships, success in business and career, and live the life you want to live.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Hi there and welcome to another episode of Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening, when you're tuning in, I just want to say thank you.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for taking some time out of your day to spend with me and to listen in on today's podcast, which is all about big T trauma versus little T trauma.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about what the difference is and just to help get an understanding of trauma in general.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, regardless of the magnitude of a traumatic event, it can still, an event that we experience can still be upsetting, irregardless of whether or not it is a big thing that happens or a little thing that happens.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because the truth is, yes, there are some events that are more traumatic than others, which we might refer to as a big T trauma.
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  SPEAKER_01: Like for instance, a very severe car accident is a big T trauma.
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  SPEAKER_01: However, experts have also agreed that we as individuals and humans experience little T traumas every single day.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: So let's just talk about what trauma is in general.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Trauma is a person's emotional reaction to an upsetting experience.
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  SPEAKER_01: And a traumatic event can be highly distressing and can at times feel like it exceeds a person's ability to cope with that stress, which eventually leads to emotional, mental, and possibly physical harm.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: And in certain traumatic situations, if it's not worked through and dealt with, it can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then some other individuals have been diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we're not here to diagnose any of that.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: What I just really want to talk about is this idea of trauma and how many times people will discount little T traumas.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I've actually had the experience of actually referring to something, being like, I've I've said to somebody, um, oh, that was pretty traumatic for an individual.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the response was that wasn't traumatic, that was just a bad experience.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: The truth is each and every one of us can actually internalize something as traumatic, even if it's considered a little T trauma.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: So there are three types of trauma.
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  SPEAKER_01: There's acute trauma, which is a single trauma caused by a single stressful and frightening incident.
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  SPEAKER_01: There's chronic trauma, which is repeated trauma that arises from prolonged or recurrent exposure to certain traumatic situations, and then complex trauma, which is really persistent trauma, which is the frequently the result of several traumatic events.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: So acute trauma is what we would refer to as this big T, and the little T trauma refers to events that fall into the category of chronic or complex trauma.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: So big T trauma versus little T trauma, what's the real big difference?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: The term big T trauma involves these alarming events that people as a general, as a general whole, would consider traumatic, such as a violent death or an unexpected death, or again, I mentioned a car accident or a fire or um, you know, um being sexually assaulted.
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  SPEAKER_01: That is a big tea trauma.
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  SPEAKER_01: Little T traumas could include events that people experience on a personal level.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: So for instance, a more of a little T trauma could be the after effects of a divorce or uh losing a pet or um potentially the chronic emotional abuse that comes from a toxic relationship or a toxic dynamic.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh little tea trauma could be certain messages and the way that somebody talks to you on a daily basis.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I if we were looking at it from the side view, maybe that wouldn't seem like a trauma at all, but the chronic uh internalization of that experience can be considered a little tea trauma.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Big T trauma most commonly results in something that refers to PTSD or CPTSD.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it can it can occur in people who've even witnessed a traumatic event.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: So for instance, you know, unfortunately we have had several mass shootings, and sometimes people who have been a witness to it can also still experience PTSD from that because even though they weren't right up with the shooter, they had that experience and it's still a big T trauma.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now, on the other hand, little T trauma does involve these highly distressing traumatic events, but they impact a person's life and well-being um on a lower scale.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it may not necessarily trigger PTSD.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that's when we actually start seeing elements of CPTSD, which is what happens with that chronic, the chronic, um, of the chronicness of the uh the trauma.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, what are some examples of big T trauma again?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh physical violence, sexual assault, torture, car accidents, war, terrorist attacks, mass shootings, those are all big T traumas.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh events could also include things like earthquakes and tsunamis and tornadoes and hurricanes and wildfires.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Those are all big T traumas.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And when we're stressed out, our automatic nerve autonomic nervous system releases cortisol and adrenaline, and the surge of those hormones helps your body deal with the stress of the situation and to hopefully escape the danger that you might be in.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now, these traumatic events do have profound consequences because they do push us beyond our our comfort zone.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we do end up suffering from something like PTSD, we end up reliving the experience through flashbacks and nightmares, which can also uh have us experience difficulty sleeping or depression, anxiety, panic attacks, mood swings, trouble focusing.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it can also lead to other destructive behaviors, it can lead to addictions, eating disorders, um, suicidal thoughts.
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  SPEAKER_01: Because when we have a capital T trauma, we are in that fight, flight or freeze response uh for a long period of time.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: So again, fright is when a person is terrified.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is that it kind of flags the body that they've that we have to we either have to fight this or we have to flee it, or we sometimes even just the the fawn is just to just be paralyzed.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what is little tea trauma?
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  SPEAKER_01: Uh, not everyone has the same capacity to handle stress.
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  SPEAKER_01: So, again, a little tea trauma for one person might be different than for somebody else.
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  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, the breakup of a long-term relationship is a profoundly upsetting event for one individual, but may not have the same distress to another person.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, the breakup could actually be a little tea trauma for person A, but for person B, while it's distressing, it's not considered a traumatic event because there's not a whole lot of internalization that happens to it.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of little T traumas and um uh don't involve things like you know physical violence or things like that, but they're long-lasting um and they they might also still have the emotional harm that that the capital T or the big T trauma uh brings.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: So again, some events that could could be considered um associated with little T traumas are like non-life-threatening injuries, ongoing health concerns, harassment, bullying is a big one, uh, emotional abuse, dealing with divorce or a relationship that has ended.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: And these little T traumas still, these little T micro traumas can still manifest in things like anxiety or depression, uh avoidance, isolation, fatigue, trouble sleeping.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: They can also bring about guilt and shame, um, also leading to difficulty concentrating and memory problems.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: So unfortunately, when we're talking about trauma, it is not always just scanning for these big T traumas.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of times trauma-focused therapy, um, well, I should say that a lot of times when people are referring to trauma, they tend to want to put the emphasis and the focus when it's a big T trauma.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: As a coach who deals with individuals who are who's really trying to heal that relationship with themselves, oftentimes we start bringing to the surface these little T traumas, not because we're psychoanalyzing them, but because when we become when we can become aware of them, we can now start working through them and recognize is there a false belief that may have been accumulated through that false T trauma.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, that little T trauma, and then start working through that together.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because when we are able to bring that to the awareness, we are actually uh we're unshaming it first of all.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's all there's more often than not shame that starts to come about with any type of trauma.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we're unshaming it, but then we also move towards um working through it and and really challenging um maybe some core beliefs that have been have accumulated out of the experience of the the either the big T trauma or the little T trauma traumatic event.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: I hope this was helpful and just sort of giving you a basic understanding of just what trauma is and also the fact that it's not just about huge big T traumatic events that we need to pay attention to.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Paying attention to even those smaller traumatic events could help us understand what might be holding us back.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: If you would like to discuss more of this, by all means, absolutely feel free to reach out to me at any time at chatwithcomedy.com.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And until next time, stay well.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: For more information, book a chat with comedy at www.chatwithcomedy.com or visit her website at www.comedywood.com.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can also find comedy on Facebook or Instagram.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Username it's authentic me.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.