And now your body gets cold and the shaking is in your limbs. Your mind is like a skipping record, racing and jumping, the thoughts coming too fast to even think them, flying by in a kaleidoscope of remembered conversations and events, color and sound all mixed together in a shower of lies. Your hands shake, your knees cave, your heart starts to race. After that, I will write about the dynamic, multi-dimensional aspects of complex trauma.Īs the information slams into you, your body gets hot and adrenaline fills you like a million lightning bugs firing at once. Next week we will discuss the second category, relational disconnection. The remainder of this blog focuses on the first category, emotional dysregulation. I believe these symptoms fall into two broad categories of impact experienced by betrayed partners: (1) emotional dysregulation, and (2) relational disconnection. Researchers have identified seven complex traumatic stress reactions resulting from the experience of complex trauma. In such cases, complex trauma theory accurately summarizes the levels of stress, distress, and emotional fragmentation that betrayed partners experience. And it can be applied to adults who have experienced chronic relational trauma (for instance, ongoing sexual and emotional betrayal) that destroys the foundational trust in their primary relationship. However, it can also be applied to cumulative adversities experienced by cultures, people groups, and communities. So, what is complex trauma? Christine Courtois, PhD, a psychotherapist who specializes in defining and treating complex trauma, defines it as “traumatic stressors that are interpersonal, that are premeditated, planned, and caused by other humans, such as violation and/or exploitation of another person.” Notice that in Courtois’ definition, complex trauma is both relational and repeated.Ĭomplex trauma is most often associated with children who experience various types of relational and repeated violations during key developmental moments. Since then, others have built on her original concepts, further developing our understanding of this important topic. Judith Herman, who wrote the book Trauma and Recovery in 1992, was the first to define complex trauma. Let’s start by defining complex trauma and how that relates to the experience of being betrayed by our significant other. To truly understand this experience, it is important that we take some time to examine the terminology that we are using. This is the experience of Complex, Dynamic, Multi-Dimensional Betrayal Trauma. Your fear center hijacks your normal functioning, and you find yourself in a world where every task feels challenging, your mind will not stop racing, your emotions feel out of control, and your coping skills are stretched to the limit. This alters your ability to regulate your mood, to calm yourself, to think, to reason, and to make intelligent decisions. The fear center fires up and stays fired up, creating hyper-vigilance, restlessness, anxiety, and a sense of being perpetually on guard. It is severely emotionally distressing, and until you have experienced it, you really can’t imagine how truly life-altering the experience can be.Īs if that is not enough, when betrayal occurs, your brain begins to operate in a different way. It yanks your sense of security out from under you and puts you in a state of emotional free fall. It puts you on an emotional rack and pulls you in opposite directions until you are begging for mercy. Betrayal trauma makes you feel like you are losing your mind.
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