My T, who studies trauma, must think my problems are stupid

My new T is an expert in trauma. She's an academic, so she's published lots of papers on trauma (including a dissertation over 100 pages long), and is part of a special team in the community that takes care of people who have experienced terrible terrible things (like being tortured in their home countries, or having really awful things done to them in refugee camps, etc.).

I have a very bad depression, and I can think of some life experiences that have probably contributed to this (things that my parents said/did as I was growing up, ways that I have been hurt by the world at large)... but I've never experienced any truly terrible things. My parents didn't abuse or neglect me. I have never experienced sexual violence. And I've certainly never been removed from my home at gunpoint and chucked into a refugee camp.

In my work, I also spend lots of time with people who are going through awful things (I'm a doctor). And sometimes when I've spent a day in particularly close proximity to other people's suffering (e.g. watching a woman die suddenly right in front of her family, helping a family decide to put their beloved mother/grandmother on hospice, taking care of a woman who has suffered terrible domestic violence, all during a 12-hour shift) I feel frustrated when people tell me about things that feel less important to me (e.g. my roommate telling me about an upsetting email from her advisor, a patient getting pissed because we have diet ginger ale but not regular, a co-worker describing something mean her husband said to her). I'm not proud of this, and I do my darndest to react to these "lesser" sufferings with empathy... but sometimes I feel like saying, "GET A GRIP, AT LEAST YOU DIDN'T JUST WATCH YOUR MOTHER DIE" or whatever. (Just for the record, I would never ever actually do that.)

Even though my T has never ever expressed/implied an attitude like this, I can't help but imagine she feels the same way. How can she seriously listen to my stupid little stories about when my parents hurt my feelings by saying something mean or how they told me not to come back home when I was in college or whatever and say, "that must have been so difficult' or "that sounds awful" when she has heard so many things of such terrible magnitude?

[And also... I dunno, maybe I'm an awful person for thinking this, but some of my clinician friends have decided to specialize in a particular area because it's something they themselves have experienced. Like my buddy who went into family med and specialized in child abuse because he experienced it in childhood, or my other friend who went into addiction med because his dad was an alcoholic. What if my T has experienced terrible things herself? Then she really must think I'm a whiny piece of crap.]

I sort of brought this up with her a while ago. I think I was talking about why I felt hesitant about starting therapy with her (I didn't have a choice about who I was assigned to; it's a long story) and I said something like, "I know what you do for a living. You sit with people who are experiencing vast amounts of suffering." I don't 100% remember how she responded, but I think she said, "so do you" [i.e. I also sit with people who are suffering] and then took the conversation in another direction.

Anyway. Help?

I would think this is a common fear/feeling in therapy. With my long term t I had the hardest time talking to him about trauma as both of his parents were survivors of Auswhitch. What are my childhood hurts compared to that? I wish I could remember what he said to me to make me more comfortable with opening up. Something about humanity has sufffering in common. You can't make comparisons because you can never really know what another is going through. I completely understand this fear!!! Kashi suffered SA as a child and I'm not clear at exactly what happened to me how will I ever be able to talk to him about my own pain? I wish I knew the answer just that you aren't alone

I think this is a totally normal concern in therapy. My two cents:

Yes, some people have had it worse than you. But some people have had it better than you. Both of those group people (and this is the important part) and you—they are all entitled to their feelings and emotions. It’s ok to tell stories of what happened to you, to have emotions with them, to be upset/ happy/ sad/ whatever. Just because people had it worse than you doesn’t make you any less entitled to your feelings. Seriously. If your therapist is good at her job (and I’m assuming for a minute here that she is), it’s ok that your stories aren’t terrible or shocking or the worst she’s ever heard. She’s probably not ranking stories she’s heard and giving our last place medals. It’s your time, your money, and for that hour or however long your therapy session is—you get to be entitled to your stories, your feelings, your emotions.

I speak from a whole giant heap of experience here. I am terrible (terrible!) at respecting my own emotions. I do this constantly, compare my suffering to others and think it could be worse. (My default thought pattern is to tell my emotions to suck it up and shut up.) It’s something I’m constantly working on myself, and for me, it’s SO HARD. So big hugs and a whole boatload of empathy to you!

Pain is relative, but at the end of the day it's still there and needs to be worked through.

I think trauma is in part, what actually happened, but mostly our "experience" of what happened and this is a very individual thing.

Regardless of whether you think you should or shouldn't feel like you do in response to events, the fact is, you do feel like you do, therefore it is very worthy of exploration with a T.

My question to my t was, having survived what you did, how can you ever be happy? I felt that my previous ts had not been personally traumatized enough, as they took my problems too lightly? I wasnt even sure what my issue was. Then i found neglect and attachment and the false self. Maybe you just need a better definition of your issues. I used to just say i was depressed. You cant solve such a vague problem.

I have felt the same before but you know what? Trauma is still difficult and worth working through, think about how much the effects of it have impacted your life in a negative way...

I am sure they don't think they are stupid but feel free to bring it up if you want, I actually did. I asked just like that "Are my problems stupid and less important than others? Am I wasting your time?"

I've been through some awful stuff. (got raped when I was a kid, and medically tortured that damaged my leg to the point of needing amputation) And yet according to my T one of the most (or even THE most) traumatizing factors is how my parents reacted to things.

I think especially a T that specializes in trauma would recognize that.. how do I say that.. there's more to trauma than having been hit, or raped, or even called names.

As far as your reaction to people with "small" problems - I recognize that. I can't stand people complaining about their bruised elbow (and even put it in a sling) when I've been in so much pain and stuff. Same for depression, "I'm soooo depressed" right before they genuinely laugh at a joke and share that the sad feeling only started this morning. But when people say they've been traumatized, or that something hurt them, I always listen. Not sure why exactly. I never judge the initial event to be "too common" or "too not-scary" or "too not-painful" or whatever. I do admit that it can bother me when people say "I'm sooooo traumatized because I had a bad dream about the event once, I must have severe PTSD" when "real" severe PTSD means - to me - a lot of avoiding and a lot of reliving and a lot of avoiding the reliving and, of course, never feeling safe.

But saying an event wasn't traumatic enough to warrant attention? Never. If something bothers you, you deserve help. And whether the thing that bothered you is that your brother used to steal your stuffed teddy bear or that your mother used to beat you with said stuffed teddy bear (is that even possible?) doesn't have bearing on whether you deserve attention.

I'm just imagining, but I wonder if in the middle of a work shift like the one you described, having a patient who is experiencing (I am really imagining, since I can only very broadly guess what you practice) a broken limb that needs to be set or some other condition that is less emotionally anguishing for patient or the family adds a variation to the flow of your shift and also does not mean that you believe that the patient's condition is any less painful to them or less worthy of your professional attention. One person's broken leg does not hurt any less because the person in the next room is dying.

Maybe the (imagined) parallel lies there--professional life to professional life--rather than comparing your feelings in personal life to her feelings (that she might be having about your therapy) in her professional life.

In her personal life, she may very well be impatient when she hears people complaining about diet ginger ale or whatever. I think that's a pretty normal inner response when you sit with suffering all day. I have a friend on Facebook who volunteered in a Houston shelter for two weeks after Harvey and had to stand in a car rental line listening to the women behind her complain about how the hurricane disrupted their cruise plans. Gah.

And a side note: I am so grateful there are people who do the kind of work you've described. It's important work. Thanks.

Depression is a very serious disease, and by helping you she also helps all your patients. That must be so satisfying for her. She is helping a multiplicity of people through you if she manages to reach you and make a difference. You wouldn't be impatient with someone who had osteosarcoma bc someone else had pancreatic cancer. Depression is a fatal disease too often, and it isn't a result of life experience always or even usually. I would think she would be honored to treat you!

I think it matters how much we are able to put our own problems in context. You would be a lot more patient if the ginger ale person complained but obviously knew there were a lot more things more important. I'm not saying your depression isn't important; it is. But you also appreciate the suffering of others--that makes all the difference.

Also, if she does have to deal with deep trauma all day it might be a good break for her to be able to help someone more reachable.

It may help if you see people's experiences as possible links to issues rather than things that are ranked from good to bad.

- Could a persons depression be linked to disappointment about diet ginger ale? Probably not.
- Could a persons depression be linked to watching their mother die? Perhaps, perhaps not.
- Could a persons depression be linked to being rejected and criticised by their parents? Perhaps, perhaps not.

What I am trying to say is, the perceived severity of the problem doesn't matter. The question is whether the problem as a jigsaw piece fits the particular puzzle of the issue you are trying to unravel. Thats what therapists are really interested in, I think.

That's a really interesting point Sticky Twig.

I once volunteered in a place for homeless people, and at first I was surprised by how incredibly fusssy some people were over small details. For example I remember someone refusing a cheese sandwich because it has too much pickle in it. They need one making for them that has EXACTLY the right amount of pickle. Then the manager pointed out to me that this person had lost everything in their life - their job, their family, their home, their role and place in society etc. Being fussy over the exact makeup of a cheese sandwich was one of the very last things in their life where they did still have a voice and an opinion and some control, and they were going to use it! So when I thought of it like that, it made sense.

Sticky twig's comment reminded me of this. In terms of the hospital patients you mentioned (I'm totally imagining this of course!) it could be that someone is dying from an illness, sadly, having lived a truly happy life - happy and stable childhood, happy marriage, lots of family who they love and who love them, etc. On the other hand the person with a much smaller medical problem who is raging about ginger ale might have had an extremely difficult start in life, maybe has never felt loved and always felt rejected by everyone, rants over small details as the only way they know if being "heard",etc.

I'm sure that as Sticky Twig says, therapists have learned by their training and their experience that it's not helpful to judge, and they are used to gradually piecing together the puzzle of each person and also knowing that it's generally not a useful exercise to try to draw direct comparisons along the lines of why does this person seem to cope but that person does not, etc.