[Suratji]

I keep reading about trauma and how it's the result of being harmed by another person or a situation. Can it be considered trauma if you, yourself, have done something bad and the action is so out of character that it causes damaging emotional feelings for yourself years later? Or is there another word for that?

[sittingatwatersedge]

excellent question. Since you ask, I'll give you my own answer - I have wondered the same thing.

My T agrees with the idea that trauma is something that happens to you that you cannot deflect or defend against. About my own actions, she says that they were driven by trauma; she uses therapy-speak expressions, like "acting out" and "tension reduction activities".

But...... T is on the outside looking in. So far, I have not been able to find the acceptance (and forgiveness) that she seems to arrive at so easily.

[lastyearisblank]

Whatever it is you deserve to talk about it.... I hope you can give yourself that tolerance and hope.

[Perna]

If you think about it, feelings are affected, even "created" by your own thoughts and words. When we feel bad/traumatized, often it is because of something totally out of our control ("Act of God"/earthquake, tsunami, loss of job due to collapse of country's economy, car accident, etc.) but, sometimes, we feel like things could have been done differently and that someone should have done them differently, whether ourselves or the drunk driver that ran over the neighbor's child or the guy who went on a shooting rampage and killed innocent people.

There is no must-feel-this-way-in-this-situation rule about emotions and even when we think of how people "should" be serious and sad at funerals, that's a cultural rule, not an absolute one that says something is wrong with you if you laugh (the Mary Tyler Moore show where she laughs at the funeral of Chuckles the Clown comes to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuckles_Bites_the_Dust).

How we feel is a function of our own psychology. It is information, for us, to orient us in relation to ourselves and others and the situations around us. Someone you care for dies, you may feel sad or angry and that can tell you you really cared for that person. A lot of people are missing and dead from the tsunami in Japan but I am not particularly sad or angry, probably because I don't know anyone in Japan and I don't live near a nuclear reactor so I'm not too worried about nuclear accidents at the moment, etc.

I know a lot of things now, about myself, others, the world, at 60 years of age, that I did not know at 25 years of age. But to lament what I did or did not do when I was 25 would be like a child learning to read or do math wishing they'd learned it earlier; or a child learning to walk feeling like they'd wasted a year crawling.

When you did whatever you did that you are holding over your head now, you did it for a very good reason and because, at the time, that was THE thing to do. If it had not been what made sense for you to do, you would not have done it! If I offer you $10 or $100 you are going to choose the $100 but if in an hour I announce that all those people who chose the $10 are going to get an additional $1,000 would it make sense to call yourself "stupid" or "greedy" for choosing the $100 earlier? No!

When we regret our earlier "mistakes" it is with 20-20 hindsight. At the time, we did not have that! It's like worrying about the future which isn't here yet so can't be known! In an hour some guys are going to come pick up old, broken, unneeded furniture I have and I need to clean off cabinets and tables before then so they can do that. What if I sit here instead and worry about "What if I don't get them cleaned off in time?" A very obvious and simple example but no different from "What if I don't get the job" or, "What if I can't pay my rent next month". True, one would think the impact on my emotions would be less if something "bad" happened because I sat here worrying about not getting the table/cabinet cleaned out/off in time and thus didn't versus if I worry about not being able to pay the rent and am not able but, even that, one cannot predict because only I am me; the impact whatever I worry about (and, since I'm the one that is worrying, they are truly "my" worries so other people's judgments about how likely/serious the worry is don't count) may have on me is wholly mine! I "decide" by what I choose to worry about and how "much" I worry and by how I let the effect of whatever happens in reality affect me what my feelings are going to be!

I don't know how you have decided what your character was back when you did something you decided was "bad" that you have deemed it "out of character" and not only out of character now, but, by default, out of character then!

Children lie and steal and do some pretty adult-determined "bad" things but it has been proven that they don't know what they're doing, are unable, because of not having developed that portion of themselves yet, to understand. Think of Piaget and his experiments with children and how droll it is to watch a child try to figure out which container holds more/less just because they are different sizes, even though they contain the same amounts. We are like that in many other "hidden" developmental ways! If we are ignorant of something, we can't know it, no matter what our age! If we have not developed as people, as adults, we cannot do things our brains are not able/ready yet to do. If we are ill and our brains are affected, we cannot do certain things; would you criticize a fifteen year old mentally handicapped child for not being able to read or do math?

Why feel badly about yourself? Do you enjoy it? What good does it do? Let go of it; you are doing the best you can do!

[Suratji]

Thanks all for your words of insight. Perna, I disagree that 'feelings are affected by thoughts and words." I've been reading lately that our brain is divided into 3 major divisions. The reptilian brain controls our bodily functions, the cerebral cortex is where our rational brain works, and the limbic system houses our emotions.

According to my T and the experts I've been reading, the limbic system is the most powerful in regards to our behavior. We need to be conscious of our emotions in order to be able to manage and control them.

The emotions are in the driver's seat and if we are not there to steer the wheel, the emotions take over. So, maybe we could honestly say that the 'rational' part of our being can be hijacked by the 'emotional' part.

So, when it's stated that we experience 'trauma' when something happens to us that is completely out of our control, isn't it possible that emotions can do that? That we have lost control?

To state that we might have done something 'for a good reason' implies that the rational part of the brain was involved in the decision making process.

I don't want to slip down that slippery slope that will offer perpetrators of violence or crime an excuse that their emotions 'made them do it.'

But, in my case, I had years of unrecognized and buried resentment built up. I cannot even begin to explain what I felt when that huge store of emotion was released. It was the most bizarre experience I've ever had. I left my husband in a flash even though my 'rational' brain knew that it was wrong. I felt like I had been sucked up in a tornado and there was no way out. My emotions completely and utterly controlled me and my normal decision making faculty had no strength to combat them.

Eventually my H and I reconciled but I still have a vivid bodily memory of those moments in which it seemed like my out of control emotions terrorized me.

I learned that we ignore our emotions at our own peril. My job now is to learn how to be attentive to them. That's where my T is helping me.

[Perna]

Being out of rational control is not a "bad" thing if it happens. Yes, sometimes emotions can overwhelm us and the flood of chemicals make it so we smash our fist through walls, smash the other guy in the face, etc. That's why our society allows for an "insanity" plea and why there are differences in punishment between pre-meditated acts and "crimes of passion".

But ultimately, all our actions are our responsibility. If I am day dreaming and step off the curb and get hit by a car, my not paying attention is my responsibility (like the current rash of pedestrian idiots texting and walking into fountains or, more seriously, getting hit by cars). If I know person X almost always makes me angry enough so I "spit" then I need to makes sure I leave whenever person X is around or I may have to spit and that would be my responsibility because I did not leave, knowing person X makes me so angry I could spit.

My stepmother was physically abusive and when I was in my early 20's I often thought, "If she ever touches me again, I am going to smash my fist down her throat!" I never did do that and now, because of a lot of therapy I understand her and my relationship differently than I did and no longer feel that way but do not discredit that I once did feel that way.

I left home at 22 because she called me "stupid" one time too many and hurt my feelings so much that my terror of her reaction were I to disobey her had no effect on my walking away with her calling after me to "come back here"; I distinctly remember thinking, "I don't care if she kills me!" Turned out, she and my father came up to my room and she was genuinely puzzled and sorry that she had hurt me! She literally did not know her words had had that effect, had been taken that seriously by me (the argument was over how to make Good Seasons salad dressing; do you put the water in the bottle first or the vinegar? Small, inconsequential disagreement and I did it "wrong" and it was 15 years of repeated "That was a stupid thing to do!" which usually isn't even noticed after so long; who would have thought?). But I realized it was time for me to move away from home (if I let her every meaningless/"stupid" word mean that much to me when I was that old and knew I was not "stupid"). So good came of what looked so negative.

But it is true there can be trauma from it but "later" we usually are in more control? My husband, before we were married, once smacked me and I went into "KILL!" mode but had had enough therapy to stand quivering and ask, "Why?" first and it turned out he'd smacked my arm/hard hard because I'd almost electrocuted us (worse case) or caused shards of flying glass to the face to happen by being impatient and turning on the blender before he had completely seated the container on the pedestal; he's an electrical engineer so I knew what he replied was true and I also knew I didn't want to kill people protecting themselves from me. So, feel free to hit me nowadays, as long as you're "right" (and are not my stepmother :-)

[Suratji]

Originally Posted by Perna

Being out of rational control is not a "bad" thing if it happens. Yes, sometimes emotions can overwhelm us and the flood of chemicals make it so we smash our fist through walls, smash the other guy in the face, etc. That's why our society allows for an "insanity" plea and why there are differences in punishment between pre-meditated acts and "crimes of passion".

But ultimately, all our actions are our responsibility. If I am day dreaming and step off the curb and get hit by a car, my not paying attention is my responsibility (like the current rash of pedestrian idiots texting and walking into fountains or, more seriously, getting hit by cars). If I know person X almost always makes me angry enough so I "spit" then I need to makes sure I leave whenever person X is around or I may have to spit and that would be my responsibility because I did not leave, knowing person X makes me so angry I could spit.

My stepmother was physically abusive and when I was in my early 20's I often thought, "If she ever touches me again, I am going to smash my fist down her throat!" I never did do that and now, because of a lot of therapy I understand her and my relationship differently than I did and no longer feel that way but do not discredit that I once did feel that way.

I left home at 22 because she called me "stupid" one time too many and hurt my feelings so much that my terror of her reaction were I to disobey her had no effect on my walking away with her calling after me to "come back here"; I distinctly remember thinking, "I don't care if she kills me!" Turned out, she and my father came up to my room and she was genuinely puzzled and sorry that she had hurt me! She literally did not know her words had had that effect, had been taken that seriously by me (the argument was over how to make Good Seasons salad dressing; do you put the water in the bottle first or the vinegar? Small, inconsequential disagreement and I did it "wrong" and it was 15 years of repeated "That was a stupid thing to do!" which usually isn't even noticed after so long; who would have thought?). But I realized it was time for me to move away from home (if I let her every meaningless/"stupid" word mean that much to me when I was that old and knew I was not "stupid"). So good came of what looked so negative.

But it is true there can be trauma from it but "later" we usually are in more control? My husband, before we were married, once smacked me and I went into "KILL!" mode but had had enough therapy to stand quivering and ask, "Why?" first and it turned out he'd smacked my arm/hard hard because I'd almost electrocuted us (worse case) or caused shards of flying glass to the face to happen by being impatient and turning on the blender before he had completely seated the container on the pedestal; he's an electrical engineer so I knew what he replied was true and I also knew I didn't want to kill people protecting themselves from me. So, feel free to hit me nowadays, as long as you're "right" (and are not my stepmother :-)

You're right - no excuse on my part.

[elliemay]

Originally Posted by Suratji

I keep reading about trauma and how it's the result of being harmed by another person or a situation. Can it be considered trauma if you, yourself, have done something bad and the action is so out of character that it causes damaging emotional feelings for yourself years later? Or is there another word for that?

Yes, I think there is another word for that, it's called shame and it is a worthless emotion.

If you really did something way out of character and bad, then you should allow yourself to feel guilt about the action and take positive steps to remedy it, apologize, learn from it etc...

Shame, on the other hand, can be paralyzing and lock you into a cycle of inaction, of not telling, of not owning up. Guilt can mobilize.

It's like saying "I am bad" (shame) versus "I did something bad" (guilt).

I'm reading a book right now by Brene Brown in which one of her research subjects for the book defined shame as "I hate myself and know why others hate me too".

That really hit home with me. Whatever you did, go into the guilt and be freed from it. Leave that shame behind. You don't have to carry it.