A few years ago, I worked with a woman we’ll call Kelly to help her process and heal from sexual abuse in her childhood. We talked about all kinds of struggles in her life, because big “T” traumas—especially in childhood—can have far-reaching effects. One issue that kept coming up for her was her difficulty keeping her house clean. She really wanted order and cleanliness, but she’d never in her adult life been able to follow through. Using a trauma processing protocol, we explored what kinds of emotions came up for Kelly whenever she tried to clean. Suddenly, it became clear to Kelly that the emotion she associated with cleaning was fear. It didn’t make any sense on the surface. She wanted to have a clean house. Why did she feel so anxious every time she tried to make that happen? We began a process to investigate that feeling, and after a few minutes, a memory popped into Kelly’s head. In her memory, she was hiding under a bed in her childhood home. Then she remembered more fully: when she felt afraid of her brother (who abused her) she would slide under the bed, hidden by dirty clothes and miscellaneous stuff. She felt safe there, and she came to associate the mess with that feeling of safety. At a subconscious level, adult Kelly still felt safest surrounded by clutter. Her conscious mind wanted order, but her deeper psychological instincts wanted piles of dirty laundry to hide behind. To move beyond her messiness, Kelly did not need a self-help book motivating her to take ownership over her dreams. She didn’t need a chore chart. She didn’t need Marie Kondo’s tidying method. Her trauma had left an imprint on her brain, and she needed to identify the problem and process the old feelings in order for her brain to develop a new perspective. The process freed Kelly to clean without anxiety, and she told me years later that she was still enjoying a clean house. Cleaning is just one small way that Kelly’s trauma influenced her life years down the line, and it’s a good example of how big “T” trauma can have far-reaching effects—even in areas that seem irrelevant.
Collins, Tristen; Collins, Jonathan; Binder, Melissa. Why Emotions Matter: Recognize Your Body Signals, Grow in Emotional Intelligence, Discover an Embodied Spirituality (pp. 150-151). Beaumont Press. Kindle Edition.