**\#️⃣ Tags:** #Trauma #Relational #Developmental > **🌱 Planted:** Wed 18 June 2025 --- > [!quote] > “Trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.” — [[Gabor Maté]] Trauma, the Greek word for "wound", is any experience that leaves us feeling anxious, distressed or unsafe. Us humans feel this way when we’re unable to metabolise or process experiences that are simply too overwhelming for us. Traumatic experiences are tough to metabolise because we weren't equipped with the necessary internal resources we needed in order to adequately process what happened. In this way, trauma is not necessarily about the event itself, it's about how the event takes place in our interiority. This means that different people will find some experiences traumatic, while others won't. This usually depends on one's sensitivity and personal disposition. # Types of Trauma If you go on the internet and search about Trauma, you'll notice there's many different types. Not all trauma is the same. First, there's a big difference between trauma that happens one time, say like a car crash, and trauma that is repeated. We can develop PTSD from one-time traumas, and we can also develop PTSD from repeated traumas. Repeated trauma is often referred to as Complex PTSD or Complex Trauma. It is often used to refer to childhood and relational trauma, but it can refer to any kind of trauma that is repeated, even later in life. Here in The Book, when we talk about Trauma, we focus on relational trauma, i.e. trauma which takes place in relationship. More specifically, the focus is on how our early relationships shape and affect us. This is known as [[Developmental Trauma]]. The term can be used interchangeably with Complex Trauma because the patterns of Developmental Trauma are often repeated. In a one time trauma, like a car crash, your nervous system is activated by your biology. It mobilises itself with a huge release of adrenaline so you're ready to fight or flee. Your memory sharpens so you can remember the event and protect yourself from it in the future. But what if you were in a car crash every day? This is what it is like for people who've lived through war, childhood abuse or neglect, sexual abuse, or similar. Traumatic events come with a lot of energy, and our physiology is built for efficiency. When trauma is repeated, instead of mobilising to fight or run away, we disconnect and go numb. If your car alarm won't turn off no matter what you do, you cut the wires to stop it from blaring. Disconnecting and going numb is what happens when trauma is repeated. This disconnection is such an intelligent protection, even though it disconnects us from ourselves. It is what allows children to keep going to school everyday, and adults to keep going through the motions of their lives. ## Aspects of Repeated Relational Trauma Repeated relational trauma, probably more so than any other trauma, is not just about what happened to us. It is also about how we protected ourselves and survived it. Generally, we can sum up repeated relational trauma in three ways: 1. What Happened — the traumatic experiences of terror, overwhelm and helplessness we experienced. 2. How We Protected Ourselves — the adaptive strategies we had to employ to manage what happened to us. 3. What Didn't Happen ([[Missing Experience|Missing Experiences]]) — the growth and development in the form of the help we didn't get, the everyday life skills we missed out on, and the relational experiences we never got to have because we were too busy surviving. # See Also - [[Developmental Trauma]]