Complex trauma & self-expression.

There may be many reasons why we struggle to feel like we can express ourselves accurately— including complex trauma. 

Complex trauma is trauma that endured over time; that was functionally inescapable; and that entwined with our important relationships— that is, trauma we had to adapt to, that just became the context of our everyday life. 

After awhile, we may not have even realized complex trauma, was trauma. It’s one of the reasons so many complex trauma survivors struggle as adults to acknowledge themselves as “survivors.” 

When we grow up immersed in complex trauma, what we express, how we express it, and to whom we express it can become particularly fraught. 

If we’re growing up in an abusive family, church, or community, how we express ourselves mgt have ben heavily scrutinized. 

It may not have been safe or advisable to express certain things— including the easily observable reality of what was going on. 

A prolonged period  of heavily policed expression can do a real number on our beliefs about self-expression and our ability to express ourselves. 

One of the ways many survivors adapt to complex trauma is by internalizing the rules, attitudes, and beliefs of our abusers— because if we can police or punish ourselves, our nervous system reasons, we run less risk of getting into trouble with the people around us. 

Over time, self-censorship and self-punishment become so conditioned in us that we barely even realize we’re doing it— much like trauma became such a part of our everyday existence t became hard to recognize as “trauma.”

This conditioning then follows us, even after we’re away from our family or church or community— and we and ourselves out in the world, struggling to express things we feel should be “easy” to put words to. 

What’s more, even when we are able to put words to things, we often find ourselves doubting and questioning whether the words we’re using— or the body language and/or facial expressions that go with those words— are actually conveying what we think they are, or what we want to convey. 

So many survivors carry around such shame when it comes to our struggles with self-expression. 

We tell ourselves that communication should com “easy” to humans— after all, doesn’t it come “easy” to everybody else we know? 

We tell ourselves there must be something “wrong” with us, to have such anxiety about what seems to be such a normal behavior for so many other people. 

In trauma recovery we need to remember that we don’t, actually, know how “easy” or “hard” anything is for anyone else. We know how hard something, like self-expression, is for us, and we assume that everyone else must have it figured out. 

(They don’t, by the way. Lots of people struggle with self-expression for lots of reasons— whether or not they “seem” like it’s a problem for them or not.) 

We also need to remember that, even if we struggle with self-expression, that struggle makes sense given what we grew up with. It’s not a matter of intelligence— and it’s certainly not a “choice.” 

It’s not unusual for trauma survivors to be so anxious about self-expression that we literally practice what we’re going to say in advance, sometimes a lot. (I guarantee there are some survivors reading this who assumed they were the only ones who did that.) 

We get better at, and more confident with, self-expression as we get more practice at it— and as we get better at extending ourselves patience, compassion, and grace when it comes to ALL of our complex trauma symptoms and struggles. 

As with all of our symptoms and struggles, what is most important is that we not judge or belittle ourselves for it. 

Our symptoms are our symptoms. They can be frustrating, and they can present certain obstacles to our day to day living goals— but they are what they are. 

Our symptoms are not indictments of our “character,” or condemnations of our “intelligence;” and the are certainly not “choices.” 

Grace over guilt. As we work our recovery, we’re going to get lots of opportunities to practice self-expression. And hopefully, along the way, we’ll encounter people who are safe and trauma informed enough to prove us with useful, compassionate feedback on how we express ourselves. 

It’s a symptom. No more; no less.

And just like every symptom, we have to meet it in recovery with the patience, understanding, and care that its core wound requires.