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Non Specific Trauma: Big T's Little T's
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Feb 6, 2025
Welcome to Adaptable | Behavior Explained! Have you ever been guilty of saying, “What happened to me is no big deal. Other people have had it much worse.”? If so, you are not alone. Most people struggle to acknowledge that what they went through can be defined as a trauma. It is as if you somehow do not have the right to heal from your situation. All because it doesn’t seem as bad as what someone else went through. As a trauma therapist, I’m here to validate your experience. I help my clients learn how to give themselves space and recognition. By doing so, they can learn to heal from any situation; big or small. I'm Kelly O'Horo, Attachment based EMDR Therapist, EMDRIA Consultant, and Advanced Trainer. I'm a mom of 5, Nonna of 5, wife, and a healer. I have the honor of spending my workdays walking along side people while they brave their healing journeys. I try to live with the generous assumption that we're all doing the best we can with what we know. Therapists are teachers for the "life stuff" and "emotional vocabulary" that may not have been learned due to gaps in our care givers capabilities. In the last 15 years I've learned that people are freaking amazing, resilient, and inspiring. Most importantly, we are hardwired for connection and for healing! I hope to bring an authentic, compassionate, and unpolished approach while we explore a variety of topics such as parenting, marriage, relationships, dating, trauma, attachment, adoption, depression, addiction, anxiety, and love! There's a why for all behaviors and an explanation that makes perfect sense as emotion is at the root of it all. -- Links -- https://linktr.ee/kellyohorolpc https://youtu.be/rLnARKekvgo https://www.emdria.org/find-an-emdr-therapist/
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0:06
hi everyone I'm Kelly oh horo and this
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is adaptable Behavior explained hi
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everybody thank you so much for tuning
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in today we're going to discuss a little
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bit about trauma and how people
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categorize trauma where there's some
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issues with the categorization of trauma
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and why we need to do a better job of
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not categorizing things that happen to
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us you know I've heard a lot of people
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discuss you know today's people just
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talk about everything is traumatic and I
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think that's because mental health
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issues and concerns are just becoming
0:40
more commonplace conversation and quite
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frankly people very much minimize their
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emotional experiences that were
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overwhelming to them in their life and
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really simply put trauma is anything
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that we weren't prepared to handle that
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was overwhelming for our brain to digest
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and that is a completely subjetive
1:00
experience depending on the person their
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history their epigenetics what they've
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been through before and how our brain
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can digest and resolve that material so
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I'm going to talk about big tea and
1:12
little te traumas because in in my field
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it's a common uh set of language that
1:16
people use and then I'm going to talk
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about the problems with categorizing
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trauma in in buckets like that and why
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it really can create uh some obstacles
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for people to heal and to feel safe And
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discussing the things that they're
1:30
struggling with so big T and little te
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trauma terms are often used to dist
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distinguish different levels of
1:37
traumatic experiences based on the
1:39
impact uh or the severity that one
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experiences due to an event they're not
1:45
strictly clinical but they're used in
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the field of psychology and mental
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health to discuss varying degrees of
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trauma that people may encounter so just
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so that we have a a a baseline for what
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we're going to discuss Big T Trum
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traumas are events that refer to major
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or significant traumatic things that
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have happening typically their
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lifethreatening they involve risk of
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serious injury or pose a significant
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threat to one's physical or
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psychological well-being some examples
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of what people might refer to of big te
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traumas include things like natural
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disasters severe accidents physical or
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sexual abuse combat exposure terrorist
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attacks and other life-altering events
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these events are often catastrophic and
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have profound impact on a person's life
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their ability to feel whether they feel
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anxious or depressed or it impacts their
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sleep or their eating and so often times
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these events are what one would describe
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as a big tea trauma a little tea trauma
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on the other hand refers to less severe
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or chronic or cumulative experiences
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that may still have a negative impact on
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someone uh their mental health or their
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emotional well-being so these events are
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more subtle and may not be immediately
3:01
recognized as traumatic some examples of
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things that people might refer to as a
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litty trauma Encompass kind of a wide
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range of experiences like bullying
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moving emotional neglect verbal abuse uh
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loss of a pet uh divorce or witnessing
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chronic conflict within a family system
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while all these experiences may be
3:23
considered less severe than some of the
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previous events that I discussed in the
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Big T you know trauma category the
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cumulative effect can be so severe over
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time and often times if chronic and
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ongoing results in significant emotional
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distress and symptoms for a person so
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labeling these big T and little te
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traumas can present challenges for
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several reasons the first of which is
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subjectivity of trauma in general trauma
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itself is a highly subjective experience
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what might be considered a big tea
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trauma for one person might be
3:58
experienced totally differently by
4:00
another and this labeling can really
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oversimplify the complexity of an
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individual uh nervous system and the
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reactions to distressing events so an
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example might be and I hear this
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oftentimes from My First Responders
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they'll say things like you know we went
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on this call and I don't know why uh you
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know Johnny isn't upset you know this
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drowning was horrific and I don't know
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why he seems to be okay and why I'm
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struggling so much and so I say to
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people Johnny is like you you know
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Johnny is like uh you comparing yourself
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to Johnny is like an apple and an orange
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we are totally different fruit with
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totally different histories totally
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totally different resilience
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environments so when I start poking
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around it what's different about you and
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Johnny well it turns out hey you also
4:50
have a 2-year-old and Johnny doesn't
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have any children and the drowning
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happened to be a 2-year-old so we start
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going hey of course Johnny's not upset
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it's not hitting not as upset I should
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say it's not hitting Johnny in the same
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way as it's hitting you because you can
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so much more personally relate to what
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that might be like to have lost a
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2-year-old because you have one and so
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we can't compare that that comparative
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suffering is really problematic when it
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comes to categorizing trauma and why one
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might struggle more with something than
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another the other thing that is
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problematic is the minimization of an
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experience so if we label something as a
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big tea trauma it might inadvertently
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minimize the impact of the little te
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traumas so well I you know I should be
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better because I haven't experienced an
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attack or I didn't experience my my dad
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beating my mom so I don't know why I'm
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so upset when the only thing that
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happened to me was my parents got
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divorced you know I shouldn't be so
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upset so when we minimize the
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experiences because we're trying to
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categorize and put things in specific
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buckets we really minimize the
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experience of our well-being and it can
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often times limit our ability to address
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things stigmatization is another issue
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that we have to address when it comes to
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why we don't want to uh label types of
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traumas because that inadvertently
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contributes to a hierarchy of suffering
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and this hierarchy uh is potentially
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stigmatizing to those who've experienced
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something what might have been
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considered as less severe to to you but
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more severe to them they might keep
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their mouth shut they might be reluctant
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to share what they went through because
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they don't want to be seen as weak or
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vulnerable or uh not be able to get
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validation for their experience and so
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we want to not categorize for for that
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reason as well another problem with
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categorization of traumas is that it
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minimizes the complexity of trauma
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responses so what do I mean when I say
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this basically they're complex they're
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multifaceted an event labeled as a
6:58
little te might still still lead to
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severe distress and long-term
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consequences while a big tea trauma
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might be resolved relatively easier
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depending on someone's history if I was
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in a car accident and it was pretty bad
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but I've had an overly safe life for the
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for the most part I might move through
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that big car accident more easily than
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someone who just had an overly critical
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parent their whole life and could never
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do anything without criticism that
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person might be in therapy longer than
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the person with the car accident even
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though we have this uh this idea that
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one would be Pro potentially worse than
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the other so it minimizes the complexity
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of how we respond to something you know
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I can say that in my uh in my
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experience my my big t traumas would be
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that my parents got divorced when I was
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12 years old and the way that I
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experienced that experience was rather
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traumatic because of how things unfolded
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after the divorce it wasn't just the
8:00
divorce in general but it was you know
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having to move and losing access to my
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dad as much and you know my mom going
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through such a hard time that she wasn't
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really able to be present and so there
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was so many collateral events or what
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happened after the trauma that really
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negatively impacted the way that I could
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resolve my experience whereas I've heard
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cases where clients went through a
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divorce and they'll say things like you
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know my dad lived down the street for my
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mom and it was not so bad because I
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could just ride my bike if I forgot
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something and they didn't really lose
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access to either of their parents and so
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they were able to deal with you know how
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did they heal a little bit more easily
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than someone with a more complex
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experience so again we don't want to box
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things in and stories in because there's
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a whole dynamic of surrounding events
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around anything that we go through that
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really greatly impact the resolution of
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our of our a traumatic experience and
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then there's the impact on healing when
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we categorize this when we categorize
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trauma when we doubt if our experience
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was big enough to talk about or to feel
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a certain way it can you know the voices
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in our head can say well that shouldn't
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count or I should be okay and it it
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hampers our ability to fully heal and so
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we don't want to we want to shy away
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from this comparative suffering idea
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that well it wasn't as bad as this or I
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should be through something because
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someone else who went through something
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similar is because we really all bring
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to the table a different set of
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experiences genetics and history that
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really uh informs the way that we digest
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overwhelming information another topic
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that I want to make sure that I address
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as to part of why we don't want to
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categorize is there's a there's a pretty
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significant difference in cultures based
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on what's okay and not okay regarding
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vulnerability so for example in our
10:00
Western culture oftentimes we don't
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support grief and anguish in the way
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that other cultures do so we try to keep
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it small if you go to a funeral you know
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you don't hear people wailing and crying
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and screaming of Anguish in in a western
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funeral often times but for example I
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went to a funeral of a friend whose uh
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whose mother lost her daughter and they
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were a African culture they were from a
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a country near Ethiopia called arria and
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in that culture anguish and wailing and
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expressing that grief is normal and
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commonplace and I was really thinking
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about it it was so painful to hear her
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in this way but I also thought she's
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going to heal faster because in her
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culture it's it's okay and it's expected
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and it's almost celebrated to be able to
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express the emotional experience that
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one goes through and so those are all
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pieces of the puzzle that we have to
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consider when we think about how do we
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resolve traumatic experiences and just
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one more reason that we want to shy away
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from the categorization of traumatic
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experiences so I hope that you found
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that information helpful again we want
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to shy away from comparing what we went
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through that could be considered
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traumatic for one and not the other we
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want to shy away from trying to
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compartmentalize uh traumatic experience
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into one or
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uh two kinds of traumas and really get
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curious with people about their whole
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experience and why they might be
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experiencing the lack of resolution from
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a traumatic a traumatic event so I hope
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that you found this helpful I hope that
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it gives you pause when you're trying to
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relate with others about how they're
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dealing with events and emotional
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experiences and I hope that this helps
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you to have more compassion and
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understanding for both yourself and for
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others when we're sharing vulnerable
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experiences that we might be struggling
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with that contribute to how we are
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dealing uh in relationships and showing
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up in the world related to symptoms of
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overall wellness and mental health so
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thank you so much for listening I really
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appreciate your attention today and I
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hope that you feel uh more enlightened
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about how to approach these kinds of
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topics with people and please remember
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to lead with love because it'll never
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steer you
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[Music]
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wrong
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[Music]
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you
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