This is how the quick-fix-er marriage gurus get you: They assure you that you can fix things in 8 weeks or 30 days or <gasp!> just 7 days or <outrageous!> a weekend.
Well, of course you want things fixed.
And it doesn’t work.
Well, it works for some people.
Here’s who it works for:
• People who don’t over-react when criticized
• People who are willing to listen to you telling them what they did wrong and honestly want to fix it
• People without a temper, a victim mentality, or a habit of shutting down when upset
What is it about people that enables them to do this?
What is it about people that makes them able to handle criticism, want to hear what you say, and want to correct the mistakes they made?
Simple: They did not suffer trauma in childhood.
Here’s a list of things that constitute “little-t” trauma:
--parents divorcing
--being bullied at school with no one to talk to about it
--being picked on by sadistic teachers
--being bullied at home
--being ignored by parents
--being left alone way too long
--moving to new places and unable to adjust socially
--parents being sick or dying
--hearing parents argue
--witnessing the disconnection of parents, such as sleeping in separate bedrooms
--not being encouraged to do your best; not being praised when you did your best
--never discussing feelings in your house, possibly being mocked for having any
I think you get the idea. “Little t” trauma is not a car wreck or a war; it’s the daily grind of a painful, unsupported childhood.
Why Don’t People With Childhood Trauma React Well to Criticism & Other People’s Feelings?
Here is what happens to children as they try to cope with a painful childhood:
*they may simply tune out what people say so they don’t keep hearing what feels like total rejection to them
*they may get angry and aggressive in order to not hear the other person and to have something that makes them feel better about themselves
*they may become overly logical as a way of pushing feelings away
*they will surely take any complaint as a criticism of them.
This is why, when they grow up, if you do 10 nice things and forget one thing you should have done, they will be devastated and feel unloved
Not only that, they didn’t have a good role model of what a loving couple and loving family looks and acts like, so how would they know?
True, you can tell them, but can they picture it?
Unlikely.
That is why all the explanations in the world – by you, by a therapist, by a Rabbi – aren’t going to connect for them.
I was browsing the Google list of sites that think 30 day challenges can work and I just shook my head. One suggestion was “Look at him admiringly and make sure he sees you.”
Can you imagine doing that with someone from whom you’ve become estranged because you’ve had 20 or 30 years of their not reacting well to anything you say?
Sometimes such things do work – until the next surprise.
So What’s The Solution?
The reactions of a trauma survivor are so embedded and so automatic that they can’t be undone by talking.
Talking about your problem is just another coping mechanism – intellectualizing pain removes you from the experience.
And being at arm’s length from the experience will not heal the pain that it produced.
Make sense?
So the only way to heal the pain is to re-experience it just a little bit, say 10%. We don’t want to immerse someone in pain because that will re-traumatize them.
But we do need to feel something to correct the cause of the pain.
Once a person is kind of “in” the experience just a bit, then we capitalize on the power of the imagination to correct what happened.
Here’s an example of how this works: A man came to me unable to stand up for himself at work.
It turned out he was bullied in school.
So we had him imagine himself back at school, only he was himself, still an adult, but helping his younger self out. Together, they confronted the bullies!
From that day forward, he was a changed man at work and with everyone.
And, I might add, I only needed to see him twice.
Note that hypnosis draws on this, too, but being in an alternate reality is not at all necessary for the imagination to do its job.
Maybe this is why I love my job. It’s really fun to empower people to totally conquor their demons.
And in turn, they get to be able to actually talk to their spouses without being triggered.
I don’t want to make his sound simpler and quicker than it might be. The greater the trauma, the younger a person when it started, the longer the time a person has used the same coping mechanisms, and the less reflective they have been about their feelings - the more time the process will take.
But who cares?
If you’re going to end up with a life that’s worth living – and someone that’s worth living with – then it seems to me it’s worth the time in therapy to get there.
So what does “there” look like?
• Not being triggered
• Having earnest and deep converstions about feelings
• Disagreeing can lead to either taking turns whose “way” you do things, or just laughing about it.
• Having empathy for each other’s pain and challenges
• Being sensitive enough to “read” each other’s body language
• Wanting to be a giver again and again in the relationship
• Just totally enjoying each other’s company
That’s what therapy accomplishes.
The speed with which you get past your triggers is a very personal one, but it’s worth it to live a good life.
Message me if you are seriously interested in this.
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