The Long-Lasting Impact of Trauma Pt. 4

We have covered three of the most common types of trauma responses in the previous few articles.  We discussed the fawning people pleaser, the freezing dissociate, as well as the “too busy for anything else” workaholic.  Often there may be a mixture of these in people or even a little of all of them.  There are many factors that play into that but suffice to say, trauma affects us all differently.  Two siblings in the same house may grow up with vastly different trauma responses despite being exposed to the same types of trauma.  With childhood trauma, our responses may be an emulation of one parent or a reaction to another, or a mixture of each.  The final trauma response we can explore in our series is the “fight” response.  This is the best known for most as it is pretty self-explanatory. 

Often when we are children and being subjected to the traumas of childhood we feel a lack of control which is part of our overall experience and defines that feeling for the remainder of our lives.  As we age, we may begin to associate the feelings of being in control with the feeling of safety, because of the disparity we felt in childhood.  This may lead to us feeling we must be in control at all times.  This goes deeper than simply not using substances or entering into situations that cause us to feel a loss of control.  Rather, this results in us entering into relationships or careers where we feel we MUST be in control.  We may become a controlling partner even to the point of becoming abusive or taking on the mantle of a narcissistic parent in our style of behavior and our patterns within relationships.      

In an interesting and seemingly counterintuitive twist, the fight type of trauma response is one which hates the notion of being abandoned.  The idea of abandonment triggers a deep rage and results in someone who is angry and instead of investing in being open and vulnerable within a relationship, rather takes on a role of an entitled individual who expects the other person to stay.  These individuals may appear to be no different than the toxic people that traumatized them and subsequently are likely to wind up in a relationship with a different type of trauma response in a sad mirroring of both of their damaged childhoods.  The fighter may have a people pleaser who is sacrificing themselves wholly just to try and keep their love while they continue to be emotionally battered and become more and more husks of themselves.  The more they get the more they expect and they become enraged when they get less than they expect creating a vicious cycle where nobody is capable of being happy or fulfilled and neither partner ever gets to truly feel safe within the relationship. 

The fighter also does something none of the other trauma responses do, and that is think of themselves in a flattering light.  Rather than focusing on how wretched they are and seeing themselves as worthless in the way the others all do, the fighters find themselves on the high ground, focusing on the shortcomings of all those around them.  As they feel superior, they feel like they get to constantly tear others apart and break them down.  This is most often noticeable when they take on the similar appearance of that narcissistic parent and use little almost innocuous remarks to knock someone down.  The remarks are never truly cutting on their own but added up over time they deeply devalue and undermine the confidence of anyone whose path crosses the fighter.  Those in the crosshairs feel ill at ease and always like they are making mistakes or not doing enough.  This keeps the fighter in a place of feeling best about themselves as they are able to see the superiority present within that relationship. This is the most antithetical approach to avoiding abandonment and ensuring safety out of all of the trauma responses we have discussed.  Where the fawner will do anything they can to try and win the love and affection to avoid abandonment, and the freeze and flights will find ways to avoid getting close so that it is essentially a non-issue, the fighter WANTS that connection but simply will not relinquish control to the point where it is detrimental and often results in repeated loss for them over and over which only heightens their need for control.

We are the people we are because of the lessons we learn early in life.  The behaviors we pick up are tied to our childhood and they can be as maladaptive as imaginable because we see these and think they are actually normal.  Often, we have no idea how dysfunctional our childhoods are and that we are byproducts of that.  In fairness to our parents, many of them have no idea that they themselves are traumatized as well.  This type of trauma is handed down generation to generation until one day someone says, “something is not right, I need to figure out what it is”.  We may not know exactly what we are dealing with in that moment, but we enter therapy and start down a path that eventually leads us to a place of healing and growth.  We discover these issues and begin working through them to address them and stop this from spreading to additional generations.  This is likely what has led you here, or maybe a friend said you should give this a read because it may sound familiar.  Regardless, the first step is always the most challenging, recognizing that there is something amiss and that we have to do some work to correct this.  It isn’t always easy work, but it is rewarding work.  It isn’t short work, but it is erasing years, often decades or even generations of trauma.