Have you ever tried talking to someone about the anxiety, depression, or other things that you feel and it seems like they don’t quite get it?
Have you ever talked to a therapist about your experiences and it seems like they sort of understand the surface of what you are talking about, but don’t understand what’s going on for you underneath the tip of the iceberg?
A major reason you may feel misunderstood as a betrayal trauma survivor is that the uncomfortable feelings caused by betrayal trauma look a whole lot like other things that people struggle with. They also look a whole lot like other things that therapists get trained to treat in graduate school.
When talking to friends and family about your experiences, they may say things like, “Oh, I get it. I get anxious too when I have to meet new people,” or, “I get overwhelmed and shut down sometimes too,” or “I get depressed too.” These folks may even actually have a full-blown anxiety disorder or diagnosis of depression. Still, you might feel like you don’t belong during this type of conversation because your experiences just feel different somehow.
The fields of psychology and psychiatry, strongly influenced by funding sources, are responsible for deciding what is real and what will get attention when it comes to mental health, and this information gets filtered through the media to end up in general conversations.
In the therapy world, here are some diagnoses that may be given to someone with betrayal trauma because of how they match what’s happening on the surface:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD):
Folks with GAD get this diagnosis because they worry all the time about all sorts of different things.
Betrayal trauma survivors get this diagnosis because they worry a lot about a lot of different things, but there is a terror associated with the worry that is often overlooked by traditional therapy for GAD. Betrayal trauma survivors learn to anticipate all the possible things that could go wrong in order to avoid worse abuse (although it often doesn’t work). Your worry may feel life and death in a way that is different from GAD.
Social Anxiety Disorder:
Social anxiety disorder is when a person has anxiety about social situations that is either very upsetting to them or interferes with their day-to-day life.
Like with generalized anxiety, betrayal trauma survivors learn to anticipate other people’s every move for survival. Again, it is not fear of rejection alone that betrayal trauma survivors feel in social situation, but fear of annihilation. If your therapist were to talk about addressing your social anxiety without going deeper, it may not help you as much as you need, and you may end up feeling more strongly like you don’t belong in the world (you do!).
Major Depressive Disorder:
A therapy client would be diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder is they feel depressed or down most of the day, nearly every day, for at least two weeks.
The way depression feels to a betrayal trauma survivor may be very similar to the way depression feels to someone who has not experienced betrayal trauma. However, a betrayal trauma survivor who is depressed may be depressed for different reasons. For example, you have a difficult time knowing what you might like, love, or need, because you didn’t get to learn these things about yourself growing up. It may feel terrifying or “not allowed” to pursue the things that would make you happy. Or your nervous system may be exhausted from constant hypervigilance.
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD):
Although most folks given this diagnosis do have a trauma history, it is inaccurate to call the impact of betrayal trauma a personality disorder. BPD involves having a hard time soothing oneself, navigating relationships, and staying in the present moment.
Some of the things folks with BPD experience overlap with what betrayal trauma survivors experience, but betrayal trauma survivors do not have a personality disorder. If you have a hard time soothing yourself, managing relationships, and staying in the present moment, it is because those things were not learned or were punished growing up and/or they were punished by an abusive relationship in adulthood.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD):
PTSD comes from a trauma that typically does not involve betrayal by someone you trusted or depended upon for survival. It involves some of the things betrayal trauma survivors experience, but it misses the core of what it’s like to live with betrayal trauma because there is nothing in the PTSD diagnosis about the terror and loneliness that come from relational trauma.
Complex PTSD is the closest, but it is not in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) so it is rarely diagnosed. It is starting to get more attention. Keep an eye out for it.
Complex PTSD takes into account all of the symptoms of PTSD plus some of the struggles around self-soothing and navigating relationships that go along with betrayal trauma. It is not in the DSM, so it is less likely to be talked about in graduate school, which means your therapist may never mention it.
Feelings of non-belonging come not just from the trauma itself, but also from the lack of recognition of betrayal trauma and complex PTSD by the mental health field.
It’s not you, and you can trust yourself waaaaaaay waaaaaaaay waaaaaaaaaaaay more than you would think based on the silencing that comes from the mental health system.
By the way, racism and other forms of oppression can also lead to symptoms of complex PTSD.
I’ll say it again:
You can trust yourself.
This week's belonging reminder:
Here’s a snail telling its truth!
How does it fit with today’s topic? Loosely! But it does include four elements I think are central to the healing of betrayal trauma: truth-telling, gentle humor, good boundaries, and genuine connection.
This week's practice suggestion:
Do a little journaling about the messages you have learned about betrayal trauma and the impact of betrayal trauma. If you haven’t learned any messages about betrayal trauma, write about how you feel about the lack of messages.
How have these messages affected your sense of belonging in the world?
Bonus practice suggestion:
Look for messages about betrayal trauma (a near-cousin of complex trauma, so you can also look for that) that increase your sense of belonging.