Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Unpacking the Hidden Impact of Trauma

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

We’ve all been there—life throws us a curveball, and we’re left dealing with trauma. And as much as we’d love just to hit the "ignore" button, trauma has this sneaky way of creeping into our relationships. In this Language of Love Bite, I dive into the deep end of trauma. We're talking all kinds here—sexual, physical, emotional, rejection, humiliation, abandonment, and betrayal trauma. It's a lot, I know, but recognizing these traumas is the first step to healing. Here is what we explore: A deeper understanding of sexual trauma and common misconceptions about consent The many faces of emotional abuse and how it shows up How trauma impacts your self-worth, trust, and intimacy Why professional support is key to recovering from trauma Be sure to check out TraumaHealing.org, where you can find a list of somatic experiencing therapists in your area, and start exploring the support you deserve. Visit my new platform, Grief Healing Collective, for resources designed to help you release grief and loss in a nurturing, transformative environment. Also, don’t forget to check out my website for courses, products, and books that will help you in the realm of love and healing. 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. When we talk about trauma, we usually think about physical trauma, sexual trauma, or emotional trauma, right?

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 with rich and nerve endings that are getting stimulated. Even if you're there, 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, throwing 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 there are really 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 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 against. 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, selfie you sent, or a video of you

having sex with someone, and they've sent that around, that is a form of, you know, 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. here's a shout out to any woman who has experienced a horrible loss is going through grief I just want you to know you don't need to do this alone and you also don't have to go through this

you can grow through it you can come out the other side of horrible loss a more self-actualized tapped in tuned in empowered version of yourself you can continue a relationship with your loved one's on the other side. I am living proof of that. With the losses I have had, especially of my sweet boy Sammy, who's forever 16, I can tell you that you actually don't have to just suffer through this. And that is why I am holding a retreat for women in Chicago called From Heartbreak to Healing. I'm bringing in a whole bunch of my favorite healer teacher friends, and we are together going to take you through the process, not only of showing you how to heal, but making it inspiring, uplifting, and beautiful. It's only women this time. I'll do some for men and for

couples as well, but this time it's only women. So come and be embraced by a sacred sisterhood, meet other like-minded people, and learn how to not just have to go through this horrible pain, but grow through it in beautiful ways. Just go to the link in my bio on my Instagram page of Dr. Laura Berman, or go to Eventbrite and search for Heartbreak to Healing Chicago, and it'll come right up. I hope to see you there. 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 if 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. 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 and 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 and 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. 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 and stop, 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.

Listen, I know you have questions and things that you want some assistance with, and I am here to help. So that's what my Language of Love sessions are for. I can talk to you live on the line, or you can email your questions and I will answer them. And you can send them anonymously. It can be about a friend or a neighbor or someone you know. But what I want you to know is that when you ask that question, you're asking not only

for yourself, but all the millions of other people who have the same question, because they do and are learning right along with you. So if you have a question or you want me to talk about something or answer something or help you with a struggle, you can always email me at languageoflovepod at gmail.com. That's languageoflovepod, as in podcast, at gmail.com. 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. I went to the doctor.