The Impact of Overidentifying with Your Trauma

Trauma. A small word that can carry intense memories and feelings when we think about it, and something we all have experienced at some point in our lives. Trauma is a deeply disturbing or distressing experience that has a short or long-lasting impact on someone’s life (mentally, physically, and emotionally). For some individuals, they can recover quickly from trauma, while others struggle to live a life separate from it. How do you validate your experience while not becoming engulfed by it? Although there is no magic answer to this question, learning how not to overidentify with our trauma can help us to heal and live a life that is not consumed by our traumatic experiences.

The first step to stop overidentifying with one’s trauma is first to understand why it is happening. For some, they overidentify with their trauma because it creates a sense of safety from what happened and provides a sense of meaning and identity. It can be difficult to figure out who you are and how to move forward after experiencing a traumatic event. Overidentifying with trauma can also be used as a protective shield, preventing someone from trying new things in life or taking new risks.

Whatever the reason may be for overidentifying with one’s trauma, it can lead to additional issues such as putting our lives on hold, engaging in unhealthy ways of coping or toxic behaviors, justifying our negative behavior towards others, reinforces negative self-beliefs (such as “I’m damaged” or “I’m broken”), worsening mental health symptoms, increases risk of isolation, hinders recovery, stuck in heightened sense of arousal, choose relationships/environments/situations that echo past trauma, and can create both learned helplessness (i.e. sense of powerlessness over situation) and a victim identity.

When we begin to stop overidentifying with our trauma, we gain back control and agency over our lives, begin to understand who we actually are, and start living our lives. It can be terrifying not to overidentify with our trauma, but doing so does not mean that our experience did not happen or that it did not matter (it did happen and it does matter). However, learning to live again can lead you towards a happier and more fulfilling life. A life that you deserve to live. One of my favorite sayings that I was told, when healing from my own trauma, was that healing was not a race and to show myself grace. Being human is challenging and it is tricky finding that balance between validating your experiences while also moving forward. All you can do on your healing journey is your best, to love yourself through this process, and to remind yourself that you are more than your trauma.

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Recommend Tools, Coping Skills, or Resources:

o   The book “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel Van Der Kolk (explains how trauma impacts us mentally and physically).

o   The TedTalk “We Don’t Move On from Grief. We Move Forward with It” from speaker Nora McInerny (who experienced several traumatic events and learned how to move forward with her grief instead of being consumed by it).

o   EMDR Therapy, (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) which is specifically designed for those who have experienced trauma.

o   Narrative Therapy involves writing a trauma narrative which helps individuals separate from their trauma.

Time to Reflect: What is one way you might be overidentifying with your trauma?