“It Wasn’t That Bad” Part II

Stories That Once Saved You

Janet E. Lapp, PhD

“The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.”
— James A. Garfield

Part I described stealth trauma, or hidden wounds that can drive us from below the surface.

Part II describes common shields used to push the wounds away, and a link to safely follow the breadcrumbs  back to those wounds.

The Shields

Many people who use shields start to describe what happened to them but then quickly add, “But I wouldn't call it trauma. It wasn't that bad.” And true enough, that defense system made it almost ‘not too bad.’

Sometimes we don’t forget what happened, but we learn not to name it. We explain it. We make peace with what hurt us by calling it something else. If pain wasn’t seen by others, it didn’t count. If it was dismissed by others, we dismissed it too.

There are many stories we tell ourselves to protect us from remembering too much too soon. They let us organize, understand, keep moving, keep loving the people who hurt us. We find words that let us look back without falling apart. See if any of these shields seem familiar:

1. They meant well.

2. Others had it worse.

3. They were just doing their best.

Your mind compares your pain to something worse. You rationalize or spiritualize the past. If your identity was built on carrying too much, you don’t want to seem ungrateful. You had enough food. But you don’t remember being hugged. You can’t remember someone helping you with fear. You’ve convinced yourself it wasn’t that bad. Because if you start acknowledging it, you’re not sure where the pain would stop.

Jim, 32, remembers the belt and the fists. His father said, “It's because I love you, I have to do this.” Jim had a roof over his head. Good clothes. A private school. When his therapist brought up the possibility of trauma, Jim laughed: “I mean, it's not like he broke bones or anything.”

It can be painful to look back and see the loneliness, the fear, the absence of warmth that shaped you. It’s easier to minimize the wound than to grieve what you never had. So you tuck it away and call it ‘growing up.’

4. He did what he knew.

Jonas, now 44, recognizes that his father lived a hard life. “He was under so much pressure,” Jonas says. “We were hard kids. That's all he knew.” But he also remembers shouting, slammed doors, silences. Still, Jonas protects his father’s story more than his own. Rationalization can make loyalty feel safer than truth.

5. At least it wasn't as bad as…

Sally’s mother didn’t hit her. She just didn’t speak to her much at all. Or notice when she cried. Her mother was busy with her friends. As an adult, Sally wonders if she’s being too dramatic. People had real trauma, she tells herself. My mom just wasn’t very warm.

6. That’s just how things were back then.

You make sense of what happened by wrapping it up in history. You tell yourself it was the culture, the generation, the immigrant story. You were told to stay quiet, to be strong, to never cry. And now, as an adult, you can’t find your feelings. You can’t stop working. You call it your ‘heritage,’ even though it might be costing you the experience of being fully alive.

7. Everything happens for a reason.

You turn your pain into purpose. You tell others about healing, how to forgive. But you’ve never grieved what you lost. Emily believes everything that happened to her was a gift from God and that trauma made her who she was. And this can be true on the other side of healing. But when spiritual bypassing replaces grief, the wound still hides beneath the words.

8. I had to be strong.

You had no choice but to grow up fast, to survive without being a burden. Now, you’re the reliable one. The one who never asks for help. But under that armor is a small voice that never got to say, I’m tired. I’m scared. I wish someone would take care of me. Your strength was never in doubt. What was missing was the ability to be vulnerable.

Jennifer’s independence became her fortress, built on the belief that needing no one meant never being hurt. In crisis, her emotions shut off like a circuit breaker. As a nurse in the Emergency Department, she was focused, effective, capable. When her own children were injured, she was competent, fast, composed, but at the expense of warmth and tenderness. One day in a park, another mother screamed when her son fell off a slide. Jennifer’s daughter looked up at her and asked, “Why can’t you be like her when we get hurt?”

Each of these patterns contains some truth. If you see yourself in these stories, take it as proof of how well your stories protected you. But when they block you from reaching the hurt underneath, they stop being bridges and start becoming walls.

Healing begins by noticing and respecting each story. You don’t have to throw out your shields. Even after you see what’s there, you get to keep them. You created them, and every so often, you might need them. But you can get them out of the driver’s seat.

“What cannot be spoken will be lived. What can be spoken can be released.”

—Caroline Myss

Summary

Shields are at their strongest when protecting ‘stealth’ or ‘hidden’ trauma. Many people think that trauma is defined by what happened: violence, loss, a shattering moment. But trauma forms when there is too much, too fast, too soon, or when pain has nowhere to go.

This is the quiet side of trauma that hides in plain sight. It comes from what didn’t happen. Not the chaos, but that the fact that nothing got fixed.

The real challenge is to trust that your pain is real, even when your stories want to cancel it. Even when part of you still wants to pretend you’re fine. Because only when you name what isn’t there can you find it. And when you find it, you can begin to live it, not from the place where you had to hide it, but from the place that’s whole.

The place to start is where the past is already showing up: in your body, in your relationships, in the rules you live by. Start by following the trail back from that evidence to your earlier experiences.

Follow this link to a description of common experiences that can lead to stealth trauma. As you read through them, you can check if the reaction you had back then is still your reaction to similar events now. If so, you get a chance to uncover and update!