You Need to Walk Through the Dark to Find the Light

There is no existence without darkness. That is life’s guarantee.

But removing the Spotlight effect from my own perception, I’ve come to realize that everyone experiences darkness and each person’s “darkness” looks different.

In Peter Attia’s book Outlive he opens up about his recovery from emotional insecurity and in talking about his recovery he mentions the idea of “big-T” trauma and “little-t” trauma and it really hit home. Why? Because I feel that everyone has experienced little-t in their lives in some shape or form (and I am not discounting the number or magnitude of people who have experienced big-T).

Big-T and Little-t Trauma

Big-T trauma is what many of us usually think of when we hear the word “trauma:” rape, molestation, physical abuse. The devastating assault on one’s psychological capacity and coping abilities is something I cannot imagine. It is darkness in its darkest form.

But I always thought it was the only form.

But darkness wears many masks. It isn’t always so obvious. And it’s the subtlety of little-t trauma that makes it so vicious.

It is so easy to see little-t trauma and simply think that it is just the way things are: bullying or getting bullied at school, parents yelling at each other often, parents yelling at a child often and excessively, teasing and sarcasm, expecting perfection, not accepting a child for who they are, emotionally distant and unavailable parents, parents that are more friends than parents, divorce, hitting children, using excessive fear and threats with children, and the list goes on.

As an adult, it is easy to look at some of those things as small and insignificant, simply shrug and view them as “just part of life”, “a product of the times”, or “life isn’t fair”, and that is what makes little-t so dangerous. To an adult “it’s just life”, but to a child it’s life-altering.

Trauma, big T or little-t, means having experienced moments of perceived helplessness. The situations in question may or may not have been life-or-death, he explained, “but to a child with an undeveloped brain, it may have seemed that way.

Peter Attia. Outlive

This is not a call for, as Jonathan Haidt calls it, The Coddling of the American Mind. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It is allowing adversity in, but preventing the unnecessary little-t trauma in a child’s life, or at least being able to notice it.

Adversity is good. Little-t, not so good.

A Generation Who Forgot What It Was Like to Be Young (and the Little-t Trauma)

Of course, life is going to happen. Of course, life is hard and full of failures and adversity. And of course, life isn’t fair. But that doesn’t discount the fact that to a child’s mind, these events are more prolific than most of us give them credit for.

So often we forget what it was like to be young in the world.

Youth can not know how age thinks and feels, but old men are guilty if they forget what it is to be young.

Albus Dumbledore

The point is this: little-t trauma is a constant in life, for all of us. All humans all of the time and at any age. And everyone’s will look and feel different.

As adults, we deal with it. Most of us do it in unhealthy ways, like drinking, drugs, promiscuity, gossip, binge-watching shows, social media, any distraction that feels good, anger, people-pleasing, and working jobs we hate. And some in healthy ways, like exercise, meaningful connection, passion projects, new and meaningful experiences, journaling, walking, hiking, and therapy.

But children, they adapt.

The most important thing about childhood trauma is not the event itself but the way the child adapts to it. Children are remarkably resilient, and wounded children become adaptive children. The problems begin when these adaptive children grow up to become maladaptive, dysfunctional adults.

Peter Attia

Life is a constant barrage of little-t trauma. That won’t change. But what can change is how we help children navigate through the chaos, so that when they grow up, they can deal with life’s adversity in healthy ways.

The point is to try to remember what it was like to be young and helpless. To remember what little-t you experienced in your youth. And we’ve all experienced it in some form. To remember what hurt you. What stung you. What memories are still there lurking just beneath the surface?

I know they are there.

We all have them.

You can’t hide from them.

Embracing Your Humanity (and Your Flaws)

How do I know that? Because you are human. And I know life. And so do you. We both know life’s chaotic nature – we just forget that children are right there next to us experiencing the same mysteries and stressors of life, just at a different age and in different ways.

Here is how trauma reveals itself in adulthood:

The four branches of the trauma tree: (1) addiction, not only to vices such as drugs, alcohol, and gambling, but also to socially acceptable things such as work, exercise, and perfectionism; (2) codependency, or excessive psychological reliance on another person; (3) habituated survival strategies, such as a propensity to anger and rage; (4) attachment disorders, difficulty forming and maintaining connections or meaningful relationships with others.

Peter Attia

I was easily 4 out of 4 of those branches. Drugs and alcohol: yes, please. Codependency: too embarrassing to admit. Habituated survival strategies: I was always “the nice guy”. Attachment issues: you betcha.

If you’ve experienced little-t in your life, which you absolutely have, you need to look back on it. Meet it. Face it. Sit with it. Talk to it. Work through it.

I found mine: I am a grown man, and in my 39 years of time on this planet, my father has never, yes, never, said, “I love you.” Even to this day. Emotions weren’t something we did in my house growing up. A product of the times, I guess.

Am I blaming him or anyone else? Absolutely, unequivocally, emphatically, NO! I simply went back into my past, asked some very serious questions out of sincere curiosity about who I am and why I was the way I was, and came to some very clear realizations.

Observations are not blame. They are simply observations.

The Past Can’t Be Changed, but the Story You Tell Yourself Can

Is it okay that affection was something that we all avoided in my house? Yes, of course it is. There is nothing there to change. Nothing I would change.

I just wish I had known sooner. That’s why this article exists: to give you permission to go back and observe your past little-t, and work through it. Because it’s worth it.

Are there other little-t events I can think of? Of course. But that’s the one I wanted to share with strangers on the internet.

Why do such a thing and share this? Crazy, right?

Because I truly, honestly believe that everyone has experienced little-t in some way, shape, or form when they were young. I just don’t think I’m alone on that one. Although, I might be alone in the willingness to open up and share.

But that’s the thing: The more people that open up and share their experience, the more others feel safe to open up and share their experience or at least take a good, long look at their life and question why they might be the way that they are or do the things that they do.

If I am certain of anything I am certain of this: we are all here sharing this thing we call life, this human experience, and we are way, way more similar in our experiences than we think we are. And like it or not, we need each other.

We’re All Just Doing the Best We Can

The more I look at life and the people in it, I realize we are all just doing the best we can with what we have. Many of us might not even know or think that there is any little-t trauma in our life or in our past, some residue from childhood, and that everything is great now.

I used to think that, too.

If someone told me a few months ago that I had experienced some little-t trauma when I was a kid, I would have laughed and simply walked away knowing that they were wrong.

But I would have been wrong.

Now, I think that “the unexamined life is not worth living, “ as Socrates so famously noted.

And when you examine your life, you are certain to find some little-t there.

And that’s a good thing.

Because if you face it, you’ll get to meet the real you.

The one that has been there all along.

Right where you left you.

Waiting. Just waiting.

And that’s pretty rad.

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