Trauma is the Greek word for wound. Unaddressed trauma changes how we react to the world and when triggered, we can do things that sometimes have devastating consequences including domestic violence, addiction, murder and prison.
Trauma can be thought of as a raw, unhealed and very sensitive wound. Because we live in a world that values success and competence we avoid revisiting that wounded state of helplessness and vulnerability with all our determination.
We develop defense mechanisms to protect ourselves.
But locking the overwhelmingly painful feelings away doesn’t make them go away. They’re still there, like ghosts haunting our house. We try to ignore them and forget them but they still affect our behavior and after a while our defense mechanisms stop working.