Types of Trauma

I am in an internal space, non-verbal space, so I’m not posting much.  I have been thinking/emoting a lot about this process of trauma.  It is INTERESTING that the same experience that might permanently scar one person won’t even be remembered by another.  What makes the difference?

I would propose it is your digestive capability, your processing capability, your ability to integrate.  Thus, I propose four grades of trauma:

1) Life trauma: this you can integrate into an existing sense of self with little modification.  This would include the death at a normal age of a parent.

2) Life trauma that forces an improvement in your sense of self.  Example would be Marine Boot Camp.  Most people leave feeling a part of something larger than themselves, more energetic, and more disciplined.  War, similarly, has this effect on many people; others it breaks–see number 4.

3) Life trauma that forces a degradation in your sense of self.  An example would be a bad marriage, in which to keep things together you have to sacrifice parts of yourself that are important.

4) Life trauma you can’t integrate at all, like premature sexual experience/molestation, or “combat fatigue”.  This goes into a hidden, timeless place which you can’t remember well, but which frequently sends out signals in all sorts of weird ways that it is still there and unprocessed.