Trauma: The need to feel and be safe, made it emotionally dangerous to venture into new experiences
Core wound: I am not good enough, I am not worthy, I am unseen/unheard
Yesterday, in therapy, we talked about my emotional reluctance to confront my early childhood trauma. We had already touched on rescripting later-in-life trauma, but of course, that more recent trauma more often than not grabbed back to things that happened in my formative years. Or at the very least, the more recent trauma wouldn’t have been as traumatic if similar experiences in my childhood hadn’t become traumatic.
Each time, something like that happened, we both noticed that I’d emotionally shut down like a clam. Yesterday we talked about that happening. About how it would probably be good to try and touch those earlier traumatic experiences; or “sticking my finger in that festering wound” as I called it.
My therapist used the word “scary” in context to how it may feel for me to do so, but I instinctively corrected them and said “unsafe”. And that’s maybe because what I am really trying to say is “dangerous”. Because so many things that a young child would simply “do”, with or without apprehension and anticipation, became emotionally “dangerous” to me. Expressing my feelings, my emotions, it felt like a mix of impossible, unwanted (by the receiving party), and outright dangerous (to me).
Today, I thought about that some more, and I think I know why I made that correction.
“Scary” is what we say when we haven’t tried something yet, and are about to, or are contemplating to do so, and are apprehensive of the possible or potential negative experience when doing so.
“Unsafe” to me, feels more like while doing something didn’t initially feel “scary” in the past, but it became (emotionally) unsafe, because repeated prior experience showed me that the experience (invariably) turned out to be disappointing, unpleasant, painful, traumatic. Without any positive reinforcement from the people around me to show or prove me otherwise. People who should have known better; who should have done better.
It’s not my fault it felt scary or unsafe. But I’m left with the indelible experience of having been unsafe.
Unheard, not acknowledged, unseen, unloved.
