This one phrase is enough to strike fear and paralysis into the heart of any trauma survivor. It comes up often in interviews and initiating connections with people. Why is this so difficult, and what can we do about it?
Why is it so difficult to tell people about ourselves?
Relational Trauma. Many of us suffered trauma at the hands of someone who was supposed to protect us as children. As children with limited coping strategies, we may have generalized our experience by telling ourselves nobody is safe. This generalization makes establishing and maintaining relationships with people difficult, which is a distinguishing factor of CPTSD.
Lack of Trust. This is another example of trying to keep ourselves safe. We often see other people as threats to our safety and don’t trust that they have our best interests at heart. So many questions go through our minds, like…why do they want to know, or are they a predator?
I often experience this as a Trauma Recovery Career Coach who has to show up on social media and my blogs. Believe it or not, there are actually predators out there who do not have my best interests at heart, and I have to use my discernment to protect myself, so I can serve the people who need me.
Inexperience. When we work hard at keeping people at a distance for safety reasons, it does not give us the experience we need to develop and maintain healthy and safe relationships. It feels scary and awkward to meet others. What should I share with them? How much should I share?
Insecure About Our Identity. This is one that I struggled with for a time early in my healing journey. I didn’t really know who I was because I became what everyone else wanted me to be. I was a chameleon. I was a different person depending on who I was with, but I never knew who I was.
It took a lot of work in therapy to figure out who I was, my needs, and what was important to me. I am pretty clear now on who I am, what I’m good at, and what I like/need. It was so worth the effort.
What can we do about it?
Practice Presence. Continuously reminding ourselves that we are now adults with many more coping strategies to help us deal with difficult situations is really important. When we are triggered into a younger version of ourselves, our ability to cope reflects the age we are triggered to. Learning to remain present is a recommended daily practice. It doesn’t happen by itself…we need to be intentional about being present…and it takes practice. I do not do this perfectly, but I constantly work to improve in this area.
Utilize Discernment. As trauma survivors, our nervous system has been trained to alert us to potential danger. This is called hypervigilance. Some survivors do not fully appreciate hypervigilance because, quite frankly, it can be exhausting; however, I think it is a superpower. My threat management system (5 senses and Amygdala) is always on duty, working to keep me safe. My responsibility is to be the Threat Manager who attends to the alarms my body sends me and uses discernment to determine if someone is a legitimate threat.
Mindset Change. If we tell ourselves that the recruiter has power over us during an interview, for example, we will respond defensively. But if we go into the interview with the mindset of curiosity and exploration to see if the role will be a good fit for us, that changes how we will respond to the question. Sometimes, we need to convince ourselves that not everyone is out to hurt us.
Proper Preparation. This may sound obvious, but I would highly recommend taking some time to prepare what you are willing to share with people you meet in any situation. We don’t need to tell total strangers our whole life story and our most painful traumatic memories. People need to earn the right to hear our story…they need to gain our trust before we share very personal things with them.
Generally speaking, I will share with people where I’m from, that I’m married, and what I do for a living… surface-level stuff unless I am intentionally showing up as a trauma survivor who is a Trauma Recovery Career Coach. I recommend taking a few minutes to write down what you are comfortable sharing with others and practice your “elevator speech” in the mirror. Let me remind you…YOU ARE ENOUGH!
I am not immune to the freeze response. It took me three weeks to work up the courage to write to my email subscribers because I didn’t know them. I realized that the awkwardness of initiating relationships was pretty typical for survivors, and if we were going to get to know each other, one of us had to take the lead…and that was me. I firmly believe that the work develops the worker, and this work is definitely developing me.
So…Tell me about yourself
Let me invite you to practice this new skill with me in the comments 🙂 Seriously, I would love to hear from you, and if I can help you get more comfortable with this conversation starter, it is a win-win.
As always, you do not have to face this journey alone.
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Believer. Leader. Learner. Advocate. Writer. Speaker. Coach. Mentor. Triathlete. Encourager. Survivor.
Most of all, I am a fellow traveler on the rocky road called, Trauma Recovery. My mission is to minimize the effects of trauma for survivors in the workplace.
Trauma survivor; not working in the field.
I’ve never been too afraid to try describing who I am, but who wants to know. I started therapy soon after high school, 30 years ago. I didn’t try to hide. Fact is, when the healing journey is the main journey, there’s not much to share because yes, you must still be discerning.
David, thank you for bringing your virtual voice forward. Communicating transparently with your therapist is a great way to make progress with your healing. I’m glad to hear that you’ve never shied away from telling others who you are.
I never know what I should tell people because I feel like they are not trying to go too deep with first conversations. It seems so pointless. I mean I am a whole world inside and yet there are only few areas that are socially accepted to talk about…
It feels like I do not fit in by the lack of understanding in the “conversation rules”. Is that… Okay? Should I do something with myself to adapt further to people? I guess there has to be a balance between adapting and being as I am but it’s really hard to notice where’s the line.
I often feel the freeze/fawn response striking back when meeting people. It becomes even harder when I feel they have limited or no interest in who I bluntly am. And when I find the courage to tell, they don’t get it correctly, they find it abnormal or worse : avoid it
Jenny, who you are absolutely matters, but not everyone has earned the right to hear your story. The challenge for us, as trauma survivors, is that meeting people is often all-or-nothing. Either we reveal everything about ourselves or nothing at all. The key is to tell them surface stuff at first and see how they handle it. If they would like to know more and are curious, you can take them to next level, and so on. I hope that helps.