On big and little T trauma

One of the ways we’ve made progress in the field of trauma is by recognizing that it’s not just the big stuff that “counts.” The field has coined this as “little t trauma”, and it refers to “milder” experiences like bullying, divorce, or living with a parent with a mental illness.  

Other things that people typically classify as “little t trauma” are things like: infidelity, legal trouble, financial issues, experiences of grief/loss, stress at work, moving states, experiences of rejection, a miscarriage, a minor accident, finding out a loved one is sick, etc.

There are a lot of issues with this seemingly helpful differentiation, and I want to speak to some of those.  

First of all, this designation continues to support the notion that trauma is an event instead of a reaction. Trauma can be an event, yes, but more than that, it is the embodied response that happens after an overwhelming experience. Trauma is what’s created, not necessary what happens. So, my first issue with this designation is that it continues purporting a half-truth about what trauma really is. It keeps the focus on the event, not the response.  

This leads nicely to my second point. We now know, thanks to PET scans and research conducted by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, that two people who go through the same traumatic experiences will experience those events in different ways. Take, let’s say, a “little t trauma” like being bullied at school.

Meet teenager A. He is being bullied at school but also has strong social support, healthy parental relationships, and a generally well-regulated nervous system. He might be able to heal from or overcome this experience of being bullied more quickly. He might not even be affected by it because he has a more established sense of Self.

Meet teenager B. She witnesses verbal abuse in the household daily, has a lack of social support, and was recently in a car accident. Her nervous system is fundamentally different than teen A. It’s likely more sensitive due to the undischarged trauma that she’s carrying. Another way of saying that is that she has higher amount of toxic stress in her body and because of that, even “small t things” have a significant impact. So, the bullying may be experienced by her nervous system as a severe threat to her safety. It might impact her mental health more severely than teenager A.

My point is this— life experiences, temperament type, and the presence or lack of social support impacts the severity of the trauma that is created and how much of it is stored in the body. In other words, if I am highly sensitive or already have trouble regulating my emotions, then even a “little t trauma” can be neurocepted as incredibly overwhelming.

Let me put it differently. Something that is classified as a “little t trauma” for one person might be interpreted by the body as a “big t trauma”, like in the example above. This is why these designations can do more harm than good.

Which leads me naturally to my next point— this type of classification system is based on the assumption, or maybe rather creates the belief, that some peoples pain is more worthy of being addressed or healed than others. It creates levels or hierarchies. And that’s not cool.

I see client’s day in and day out who say things like, “My trauma really wasn’t that bad” or “I felt scared, but it wasn’t like I was being abused or anything” or “I should just be able to get over it. My parent’s getting divorced shouldn’t affect me this much.”

What they’re actually saying is this— because my trauma is just a “little t” and not a “big t”, it shouldn’t hurt this bad or have such an impact.

And this is why I get frustrated and fired up about this whole big and little T stuff. This designation is invalidating and inaccurate. It creates shame.

Anything that happens that is too soon, too quick or too much is trauma. Anything that happens that overwhelms the central nervous system and activates our inborn defense mechanisms is trauma. And we need to start believing people. We need to believe them when they share what is painful and hard and causing them significant distress. We need to believe them when they reach out for support for things that our culture so quickly says to just “get over.”

Trauma is personal. It’s not necessarily the magnitude of an event that determines how much it will impact you. It’s how your body neurocepted the threat. It’s how your body received it.  

So be careful when you let the Big T/little t trauma designations tell you how you should feel about something traumatic or hard in your life. If you experience something as significantly overwhelming, if it interferes with your daily functioning, if it creates extreme dysregulation in the body, it’s worthy of being validated and treated by a mental health professional.

“Little t trauma” is still trauma. It matters just as much. It counts just as much. It can be as clinically significant and distressing. It is worthy of being met with just as much empathy and compassion as “the big stuff.”

Trauma is trauma. Period.