When we hear “psychological trauma,” we often imagine life-changing events that not only affect us in the short term, but also leave deep scars on our souls forever. Of course, not all of us experience major shocks that result in major trauma. But there are others that we all get while going about our daily activities – tiny injuries.
What are “tiny psychological traumas”
As defined by psychologist and author of Tiny Traumas Meg Arroll, these are everyday psychological and emotional troubles and stressful moments that we don’t pay too much attention to. Individually, they do not have much impact on us, but over time they accumulate and can seriously harm our mental health.
For example, tiny traumas often cause us to feel “a little off” even though on the surface everything is fine and we have no reason to feel unhappy, anxious or depressed. When turning to a psychologist at such moments, many sometimes feel shame or embarrassment, because everything in their life is “not so bad.” However, in some cases, accumulated tiny traumas can affect us even more than trauma with a capital “T.”
Where do they come from
Their source can be any area of life. For example, when we are expected to look, talk and act a certain way in order to fit into society, it can become a tiny trauma. Because constantly meeting other people’s expectations is an exhausting task.
If we find ourselves in a similar situation once or twice in our lives, it is not a big problem. But it can seriously affect us if we receive such a message every day, say, from social networks, which tells us that we are not good enough and that there is something wrong with us.
Other common sources of tiny traumas are situations when we feel out of place in a group, encounter microaggressions, especially in the workplace, consider ourselves inferior to others, and deal with instability, especially financial.
How tiny injuries affect mental health
They rarely cause serious disorders that require referral to a psychotherapist or psychiatrist. However, they often make you feel not okay.
Tiny traumas can lead to high-functioning anxiety, mild depression, blunted emotions, sleep disturbances, and maladaptive perfectionism. The problem is that psychologists often don’t have the time or resources to help deal with tiny traumas, so these patients’ needs go unmet.
How to deal with them
In her book Meg Arroll advises AAA technique:
- Awareness – awareness. The first step is very important to help ourselves understand why we feel a certain way. Awareness allows us to “connect the dots” and make sense of our experiences. If we don’t do this, we will only have ourselves to blame, and then tiny injuries will grow into big problems.
- Acceptance – acceptance. The desire to understand the past is good. But until we accept the event itself and the fact that it affected us, we will not be able to move on.
- Action – action. You need to take care of your mental health, just like your physical health, every day. This will be helped by activities that are generally beneficial for our well-being and are scientifically proven, for example, sports training, communication with friends, journaling, meditation. When you can’t cope on your own, you should turn to the practices of cognitive behavioral therapy or acceptance and responsibility therapy.
Is it possible to protect yourself from tiny injuries?
The idea that we are constantly receiving tiny psychological injuries can be so frightening that any attempt to protect ourselves from them will seem counterintuitive. But in fact, such injuries are very important.
Meg Arroll suggests imagining that our psyche, like our body, has immunity. We can make it stronger, but we cannot protect ourselves from every germ in the world. Moreover, microbes can even strengthen our immune system. Likewise, tiny traumas make us more resilient to major emotional upheavals in the long term.
Thus, tiny psychological traumas give us a chance to develop coping skills and acquire strong “emotional immunity” over time. Therefore, you should not bury your feelings deeper. It’s better to talk about them, analyze them and think about how they can benefit you.