Lauren Hueber MS MFT
In our fast paced, information laden society people are inundated with notifications, interruptions, and distractions. While technology increased the access and modality to interact with others, people are less engaged and attuned than ever. The less engaged and attuned we are in our important relationships, true connection dissipates. In short, when a person perceives their significant other as inaccessible, unresponsive, or possibly threatening, feelings of anxiety, loneliness, and distress can motivate the person to act out of survival, especially if that person experienced trauma at some point in their life (van der Kolk, 2014).
The term trauma has become a buzzword, in large part due to the expansion and popularity of social media with its influx of reels people can consume under 15 seconds in the palm of their hands.
Showing up everywhere, the word “trauma” is infused into mainstream culture in ways that supersedes the very real meaning, making it a brain-bender in relation to semantics. In some capacities the phrase has become a catchall, or rational for a person’s unexpected emotional experience.
Stress is an essential and unavoidable component of life as it provides challenge and pressure for growth and learning. However, too much stress for too long can lead to distress, which then can turn into burnout, and that is a topic for a different blog altogether.
While stress is uncomfortable and challenging, it differs from trauma in notable ways. Trauma is not necessarily based on external factors so much as how a person makes sense of an overwhelming and distressing event. Any event, or series of events, that threatens a person’s emotional and/or physical safety embodies the potential for traumatization, and the more overwhelmed, helpless, and alone a person feels in response is what makes trauma subjective. The influence of trauma on a person is vastly variable, but research and evidence reinforce the benefit of connection with valued others for recovery and healing. A felt sense of safe attachment, where attachment needs of comfort, support and care are fulfilled, is a survival mechanism and a beneficial factor in trauma recovery, as research shows this bond aids in reducing fear, isolation, and regulating the nervous system (Simpson & Steven Rholes, 2017).
The founder of attachment informed Emotion Focused Therapy, Dr. Sue Johnson (2019), explains that humans are a species wired for connection and a need for bonding experiences. Dr. Johnson explains, “The need for connection with others shapes our neural architecture, our responses to stress, our everyday emotional lives, and the interpersonal dramas and dilemmas that are at the heart of those lives” (p.5). Adversity and trauma tends to complicate this evaluation, often distorting a person’s meaning making and perception of their working models of self and others. This might lead to interpretations of risk and threat that do not exist, compelling the trauma survivor to enact protective behaviors like distancing, withdrawal, or criticism and contempt. These protective behaviors are more common for individuals who experienced interpersonal trauma, especially if the violation occurred at the hands of someone the victim deems of value and significance in their life.
Trauma of this nature violates a person’s basic, fundamental needs for safety and agency, stripping them of their voice, shattering what they once believed about themself, the world, and their place in it. In the face of threat, humans are biologically programmed to mobilize, and interpersonal trauma often places the victim in an inescapable position (van der Kolk, 2014). When the ability to fight or flee is impeded, the brain overrides the system by activating the freeze response, separating the person from their physical body. As much as I want to provide insight into the way trauma can impact a person’s sexual health, I find it necessary to first clarify trauma in general, which only scratches the surface of a much broader topic involving many factors that can lead to an array of outcomes. Furthermore, to more readily understand the variable ways in which trauma impairs or impedes sexual health, I must first explain the ways in which trauma can influence connection; not just the connection to others, but the connection a person has to themself.
All too often, I come across individuals who feel a need to qualify or quantify their trauma, and to this I say, breathe, you have nothing to prove or defend. The human experience is incredibly challenging, and each and every one of us is trudging through life shouldering our own rucksack weighed down by our very individual adverse experiences. I like to use this metaphor with my clients, explaining that in their rucksack they have bricks or rocks of various sizes, each representing an attachment wound, core belief, and emotional pain. These bricks and rocks are part of our story, but do not represent the entirety of who we are.
This rucksack holds the hurt, and each of us has the capacity and agency to determine and choose the hurt we shoulder.
Working with trauma survivors I notice a tell that indicates a general estimation for the weight and size of the personal rucksack they shoulder, which is demonstrated in the ways they guard and protect themselves.
I am a licensed marriage and family therapist, and this title brings both distressed families and adversarial couples into my office.
The imprint trauma leaves on our nervous system alters the way we move through life, changing how we interpret, experience, and react to everything and everyone, and this alteration pushes people back into their traumatic pain.
When a person detects a threat of abandonment, rejection, betrayal, or loss, they lose their sense of safety, and their primal instincts take over; they fight (yell, criticize, demand), flee (withdraw, invalidate, pull away), freeze (shut down completely), or fawn (abandon self for the needs of the other). These survival instincts impair connection and safe attachment in many ways, and when a couple lacks connection and a felt sense of safety within their romantic relationship, eroticism is often boxed up, sealed tight, and stored away in the cellar of the soul.
Far too often in my sessions with distressed couples, one partner raises issue with the lack of sexual attention and interaction. I call this “content” simply because I know from research and practice the heartbeat of the problem is not specific to the identified “issue”. Once I am capable of deepening the client’s emotional experience, where they feel safe enough to share their attachment meaning and vulnerable primary emotional experience associated with the specific sexual issue, which I refer to as “process”, the real problem is almost always rooted in connection and safety. While the depth and quality of a couples attachment bond can shape sexual interactions in various ways, a couple who feel both connected and safe are more likely to take risks, play, explore, and allow themselves to fully immerse in the sensory excitement and pleasure during sexual interactions (Johnson, 2019).
Trauma leaves an imprint, and it is one only the survivor can address if they determine it as problematic. The challenge with this lies in the way trauma is stored explicitly, often as fragmented conscious memories, and implicitly, as somatic, physiological experience separate from consciousness; in other words, the body remembers what the conscious mind cannot recall (van der Kolk, 2014).
Implicit memory is embedded and entrenched in a person’s automatic functioning, and most often the culprit for maladaptive behaviors and emotional reactivity. With this in mind, some might find themselves feeling confused and frustrated, asking, “Why do I push people away?” or, “Why do I feel this overwhelming surge of anger and lash out the way I do?”
Maybe you are reading this and some light bulbs are going off in your mind, or perhaps you already know much of what is offered here and find yourself asking, “Ok, now what? I’ve gone to therapy, I’ve read the books, I know the stuff, and none of that information made a noticeable difference.”
Whether you are beginning to recognize emotional barriers and challenging patterns of behavior, or you find yourself snagged in identified unwanted patterns, unsure how to move forward in your growth and healing, I want you to know I get it, I have been where you are, you are not alone, and wherever you find yourself in the hazards of being human, you are not broken.
Trauma can hijack our present experience and behavior into the past without permission or awareness. The path of healing is not linear and can be incredibly challenging, and with the right support and treatment modality you can take back your power, find relief, and forge resilience and growth within for a more fulfilled and healthy life.
Johnson, S. M. (2019). Attachment theory in practice: Emotionally focused therapy (EFT) with individuals, couples, and families. The Guilford Press.
Simpson, J. A., & Steven Rholes, W. (2017). Adult Attachment, Stress, and Romantic Relationships. Current opinion in psychology, 13, 19–24.
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.
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