Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - The Hidden Impact of Trauma on Love and Relationships

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

In this Language of Love Bite, we're going to dive deep into a topic that's both incredibly personal and universally relevant – the five common types of trauma and how they impact our love lives and relationships. As a sex and relationship therapist, I've seen firsthand how trauma can really shake the foundation of our self-worth and trust. We're talking about sexual trauma, physical trauma, emotional trauma, and those gut-wrenching experiences of rejection, humiliation, abandonment, and betrayal. Each one of these can leave scars that might not be visible to the eye but can be felt deeply in the heart. I want to walk you through how these traumas can hinder us, and how they can make us put up walls where we should be building bridges. It's about understanding that when we're hurt, our instincts tell us to protect ourselves, sometimes to the point where we might push away the things we desire most – connection, intimacy, and love. But here's the thing – and this is so important – healing is possible. I can't stress enough the value of trauma-informed therapy. Techniques like somatic experiencing can be game-changers, helping us to reconnect with our bodies and process those deep-seated emotions that we've been carrying around. If you’re struggling, don’t hesitate to seek professional help. It's not a sign of weakness; it's a step towards recovery. And I want you to know that you're not alone in this. We're in it together, and I'm here to support you on your journey towards healthier, more fulfilling relationships. Remember to visit my website for tips on revitalizing your sex life: prioritize open communication, try the fantasy box, take my “Seven Days to Better Sex” course, and explore “Quantum Love.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman, and for the last 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Welcome to the Language of Love Bites, where I tackle your most asked questions and requested topics. These episodes are designed to be fun, quick, and to the point. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. At the end of this episode, I'm going to tell you what to do about these traumas. But first, let's dive into these.

When we talk about trauma, we usually think about physical trauma, sexual trauma, or emotional trauma. But I'm going to describe to you the five common forms of trauma, some of which you may not have thought about before, but when you hear them, you may recognize yourself in what I'm saying. So let's just start what most people already know about, which is sexual trauma, right? That is when anyone at any point in your life has touched you sexually, forced you to be sexual, when you didn't want to be engaged with you against your will sexually, any kind of touch

or sexual act that you did not want, you did not welcome or was forced upon you. And this includes any kind of sexual act that you didn't necessarily want or look for when you were young, when you were a child, even if it was, and this is true across the board with sexual trauma, it is not uncommon to experience sexual pleasure when being sexually traumatized. It is not your fault. It is a normal physiologic response. There are parts of your body rich in nerve endings that are getting stimulated. There are research has shown that even women getting raped will actually lubricate, not because they're enjoying it, but because their body is responding to protect itself. So don't think that you weren't sexually abused if you enjoyed it. And if you were in a sexually abusive relationship where someone was repeatedly sexually abusing you, don't be confused or judge yourself if you even sought it out.

If you were not in a position to give consent, meaning that you were a child or the person that you were having sex with was in a position of power or status or control over you, any of those, it is still considered sexual trauma and sexual abuse. And then, of course, there is physical abuse. That is when someone has beaten you. Spanking in many cases is even categorized as a physical abuse. But any kind of undue physical aggression towards you, beating is considered physical abuse. hitting you, threatening you to do physical harm, you know, throwing a glass right next to your head or a chair across the room, those would all fall into the categories of physical slash emotional abuse. So let's talk about emotional abuse because one form of emotional abuse falls into the category of physical abuse where they are threatening you, maybe not actually hitting you, but threatening to hit you or acting violently or throwing chairs across the room and scaring you and making it clear that you are in danger if you don't comply with whatever they're wanting you to

comply with, assuming they're even rational at that point. That sometimes is a form of emotional abuse. But there are four other categories of emotional abuse that a lot of people don't think about. The first is rejection trauma. That is really, really common and not talked about enough. So if as a child, one of your key caregivers pushed you away, wouldn't give you comfort or care, you know, when you went to cuddle them or sit on their lap, they constantly say, get off of me or pushed you away. They weren't available and in fact rejected you. That is a form of rejection trauma, and it can deeply affect your ability to bond with people, to feel safe in relationships, and to move into emotionally intimate connections

with people. It really can affect that. And sometimes rejection trauma happens through bullying. We're going to talk about another kind of trauma that can happen through bullying, But rejection trauma is one of them. So if in elementary school, high school, whenever it was you were isolated and your attempts to create friendships or be included were met with rejection repeatedly, that can create a rejection trauma. And what the result of rejection trauma is, is that you will go inward inside yourself. You will isolate physically and or emotionally, and you often will be unwilling to take social or emotional risks because you are so scared of being rejected again. So you may not let yourself get close to people. You may not let yourself go too deeply into a relationship in case you then get rejected.

Another kind of sister or cousin form of this is what's called humiliation trauma. So this is the other kind of trauma that can happen through bullying, but it can also happen in your family or in other social situations. It is what you think. It's the humiliation. So what I always think of as a classic example of humiliation trauma is you remember that movie Carrie, that horror movie where she goes to the prom and she's all excited thinking she's actually being included and they pour blood on her head and it's this whole public humiliation. So if you are publicly heckled and humiliated and shamed by your peers or what we see a lot. And this is a form of humiliation trauma. When someone sends around a text or an email that was meant to be private or images of you naked, a selfie you sent or a video of you having sex

with someone and they've sent that around, you feel humiliated and embarrassed. That is a form of humiliation trauma. And most people don't consider that a form of trauma, but it is. And it will deeply affect your self-concept, your self-worth, and your willingness to trust others when you've been publicly humiliated. It will also, much like rejection trauma, keep you from taking emotional risks and putting yourself out there and being vulnerable, all of which are required for healthy, intimate relationships. Most of us have no idea how to move through loss.

there's no roadmap to follow when you're trying to navigate grief. And I realized this when I lost my son three years ago. As a therapist who understood grief, a whole new level of pain opened up to me when I lost my 16-year-old son. And since then, I have been building resources that have allowed me to navigate through loss, not only in a healthy way, but in a way that has transformed me for the better. We can move through the most terrible loss with grace. And that's why I have created the course, Good Grief, Healing from Loss with Love. You can find it on my website, drlauraberman.com, right there on the homepage, as well as free resources letting you know how to support others who are going through loss. None of us has to do this alone.

The next form of trauma I want to talk about is abandonment trauma. Now, this happens usually during our earlier years, family of origin stuff, where one of the parents leaves the family, leaves you either through divorce or separation or walks out or even dies. Those are all forms of abandonment trauma. It can also happen in your earlier intimate relationships. If you had a really, really close friendship or romantic relationship, which suddenly ended and that person completely broke your heart and left and refused to have anything else to do with you, that actually can create an abandonment trauma. And what happens as a result of that is that you have trouble not only trusting, but you won't even enter into a relationship. You will be likely to

sabotage your relationships before they even start so that you're the one abandoning and you won't be abandoned. It gives a false sense of control, right? That you can then leave before you get left. And you can imagine that it's very hard to sustain a healthy relationship. The final form of trauma I want to talk about is betrayal trauma. So that can be a sister to humiliation, right? So of someone who you really trust and we're close to, let's say it's your best friend that you told a really embarrassing secret about yourself or your family and they spread it around the whole school. That is not only a humiliation trauma, but a betrayal trauma or someone who you really trusted your heart with cheated on you or had another relationship the whole time you were

together, right? Any kind of betrayal can create a betrayal trauma. Now with all of these, the embedded nature of the trauma usually is greater when it started earlier in life. The earlier in life you experienced it, that plays a significant role in how sticky the trauma is and how much it's going to affect you and the degree of the trauma, the intensity of what happened and how long the incident lasted and how long the impact of it lasted, right? So if you have a humiliation or betrayal trauma and the repercussions lasted a long time, those pictures were spread around the school and then went on social media and you couldn't get them to be taken down and they were going around for a long time, that's going to be a lot more traumatic than if you were able to pull

that back right away, right? So it depends on all of these factors, but it's really important to understand that sexual and physical abuse, rejection, humiliation, abandonment, and betrayal all deeply affect our self-worth, our sense of how worthy of love we are, our willingness to be vulnerable and put ourselves out there, our willingness to trust, and our ability to hold intimacy and connection. And the truth is the treatment is the same for all of them. You must get help from a trained clinician or coach who specializes in trauma and recovery. So there are trauma-informed coaches out there as well as trauma-informed therapists. And you want to make sure whoever you work with has experience with trauma because it's a unique form of healing

that requires tremendous support in not only acknowledging what happened to you, you don't need to stay there forever and go over all the tiny details of what happened unless you want to, but a container to hold and witness and help you break down what happened to you and then heal and release the negative impacts. So one of the most important forms of trauma therapy that I want you to make sure you incorporate with whoever you work with is somatic experiencing, which is body focused trauma therapy. Because what happens with all of these traumas is that it's usually not something we're doing consciously, these negative impacts it has on us or negative reactions. It's something we're doing subconsciously, and it's often started and held in the body,

especially if it happened earlier in life. So the most effective ways to move beyond, not only heal the trauma, but stop it from sabotaging your relationships is by working with a trauma-informed therapist or coach and including somatic experiencing. You can find a good somatic experiencing therapist in lots of different places. I often refer people to a website called traumahealing.org, where you can find somatic experiencing therapists in your area. The main thing to know is that there is help available. This is really hard to heal on your own. You need that support, but you absolutely

can heal from this and have the intimacy and connection, vulnerability and closeness and safety inside yourself and in relationship that you so deserve. If you like this episode, make sure to follow and listen to The Language of Love on your favorite platform. The doctor said I'm crazy for your love