Deconstructing Trauma: What Big T And Small T Actually Mean

You know that feeling when someone mentions the word "trauma" and your brain immediately goes to war zones and car crashes? Like trauma is this big, dramatic thing that only happens to other people in extraordinary circumstances?

I get it. That's exactly what most people think when they first hear the word trauma.

But through years of working with people from all walks of life, I've learned something important: trauma isn't just about the big, dramatic events. It can be subtle, it's deeply personal and it's probably more common than you think.

What Is Trauma, Really?

Here's the thing that might surprise you, trauma isn't actually about what happens to you.

It's about what happens inside you when something overwhelms your ability to cope.

Think of it like this. Imagine your nervous system is like a circuit breaker. Most of the time, it can handle whatever life throws at you. But sometimes, an experience is so intense, so overwhelming or so threatening that it trips the whole system offline.

Your brain, in its infinite wisdom, basically says: "Right, this is too much. I'm going to store this differently so we can survive." And that's where trauma lives, not in the event itself, but in how your system responded to protect you.

The tricky part? Sometimes that protection mode gets stuck on. Years later, you might find yourself feeling unsafe when you're actually safe or shut down when you want to connect. Your body is still running the old programme, even though the danger has passed.

Breaking Down Big T and Small T Trauma

When most people think of trauma, they picture what we call "Big T" trauma, the obvious stuff that would make anyone go "Oh my God, that's terrible."

But here's what's been a game-changer for so many of my clients: understanding that there's also "Small T" trauma, experiences that might not seem "traumatic enough" to count, but absolutely do.

Big T Trauma: The Obvious Wounds

• Car accidents or serious injuries

• Physical or sexual assault

• Natural disasters

• Sudden loss of someone you love

• Being attacked or robbed

• War or violence

• Life-threatening medical emergencies

• Domestic violence

These are the experiences that everyone recognizes as traumatic. They're sudden, overwhelming and clearly threatening.

Small T Trauma: The Hidden Wounds That Cut Deep

These are the experiences that can quietly shape how you see yourself and the world:

• Being bullied (at school, online, at work)

• Feeling emotionally neglected — like you were invisible in your own family

• Constant criticism or being made to feel like you're never good enough

• Growing up with parents who fought all the time

• Feeling rejected or abandoned

• Watching someone you love get hurt, even if it wasn't happening to you

• Living with ongoing stress — poverty, chaos, instability

• Medical experiences as a child that felt scary or painful

• Simply feeling unsafe or unwanted as a kid

However, just because something seems "smaller" doesn't mean it hurt less. Sometimes the quiet, repeated experiences cut the deepest. Small T trauma is like water slowly wearing away stone, it happens so gradually that you might not even notice the erosion until years later.

Complex Trauma: When Small T Becomes Big T

And then there's what happens when Small T trauma accumulates over time, like small cracks in a foundation that eventually compromise the whole structure. This is sometimes called complex trauma:

·       Growing up with a parent who had untreated mental illness or addiction

·       Being the family scapegoat or "identified patient"

·       Living with chronic family conflict or walking on eggshells

·       Having siblings who were consistently favoured or treated differently

·       Moving frequently and never feeling settled or belonging anywhere

·        Being in toxic relationships that gradually erode your sense of self

·       Chronic workplace harassment, bullying or toxic environments

The thing about Small T trauma is that it's often dismissed, sometimes even by the person experiencing it. You might think "It wasn't that bad" or "Other people have it worse." But your brain and nervous system doesn't compare your pain to anyone else's. It just responds to what feels threatening or overwhelming in the moment.

How Trauma Shows Up Later

The thing about trauma is that it doesn't always announce itself with a neon sign. Sometimes it shows up years later, disguised as other things:

• Anxiety that seems to come from nowhere

• A persistent feeling that something is fundamentally wrong with you

• Terror of being rejected, abandoned, or failing

• Struggling to trust people or maintain relationships

• Feeling emotionally numb, like you're watching life from behind glass

• Perfectionism, people-pleasing, or working yourself to the bone

• Self-sabotaging just when things start going well

• Chronic fatigue or health problems that doctors can't quite explain

• Hypervigilance - always scanning for danger or threats

If any of this is resonating with you, know that your system isn't malfunctioning. It's actually working exactly as it should, protecting you in the only way it learned how. Your nervous system didn't develop these trauma responses randomly or carelessly; they were crafted with incredible precision during moments when your survival genuinely depended on split-second adaptations. These responses weren't just psychological, they were neurobiological adaptations that helped you survive when fight, flight, or freeze were your only options.

Tools For Trauma Recovery

I see this transformation regularly in my practice. People arrive feeling broken, having tried therapy after therapy, ready to give up. But something shifts when we work together. They start remembering who they were before the trauma took hold.

The methods I use help your brain and body do what they're naturally designed to do, process and release the trauma that’s been trapped there.

IEMT (Integral Eye Movement Therapy) — This approach uses simple eye movements to help your brain reprocess stuck memories and emotions. It's remarkable how quickly people find relief. That memory that used to feel like a lightning bolt? After IEMT, it often feels distant, neutral, like something that happened to someone else.

Identity Work — Trauma has a way of distorting how you see yourself. "You're not safe." "You're not good enough." "You're broken." We work together to untangle these old stories and reconnect you with the truth of who you are underneath all of that.

Hypnotherapy — This isn't about being "put under" or losing control. It's about accessing that gentle, relaxed state where your subconscious mind becomes more open to healing. We can work with the negative emotions left by trauma, helping to shift the beliefs and responses that keep you stuck. It's like having a compassionate conversation with the part of you that's been protecting you all these years.

Creating Safety — Before any healing can happen, your nervous system needs to know that you're safe now. We build practical tools to help you feel calm and grounded in your own body again.

A Final Thought

The work we do together doesn't just help - it transforms. Because when you're ready to stop managing your trauma and start releasing it, everything changes.

Yes, trauma may have shaped how you respond to the world. But it doesn't define your worth, your potential, or your future.

You are still in there - the real you, the whole you. Trauma simply built a protective wall around that person for a while.

And walls, no matter how thick or how long they've been there, can be gently dismantled.