The Impact of Trauma
I mentioned in my last post that I kind of enjoy getting a bit lost. I can embrace my sense of adventure. But y’all that has not always been true. I used to be super controlling and often felt the need to be in charge in order to control what was going on around me. Some of this was learned behavior, but most of it came from trauma.
I grew up in a chaotic, sometimes violent household. There were quite a few traumatic events and I never really understood how this impacted me until I got older and started dealing with things. Therapy helped. A lot!
When trauma is your norm it is hard sometimes to see how the way you cope with things could be, well, not normal. I couldn’t just have a dinner party, I had to have a themed menu, all of the dishes had to go together and the table had to be set just so. If I was going out to dinner I had to know the whole plan. What time, what restaurant, and who was going. If anything deviated from that plan it would cause me to have a full on panic attack and I would step in and direct everyone as to what was going to happen next as a way to exert control over everything, since I was rapidly spiraling out of control.
It would show up in so many ways that often made me difficult to be around. If someone wasn’t doing it ‘right’, then I would sometimes take things out of peoples hands and go do it myself. My mindset was well, I’ll just do it myself. People couldn’t offer to help, partly because I wasn’t good about accepting help, but mainly because they wouldn’t get it done ‘right.’ Whatever that meant.
I couldn’t do anything spontaneous, because without all of the information I didn’t feel in control. Granted today, I’m not very spontaneous but that’s about keeping tabs on my low introvert energy!
All of that behavior came out of a need to exert control over my environment because I grew up in an environment that often quickly slid completely out of control. Being in control gave me the illusion that I was safe. That I was in power. Everything I did was to provide that little girl in me, at least the illusion, that I was safe and ok.
I have a friend who says he loves coming to my house, because I make people feel like they are at home and it’s easy. Which makes me laugh, because the very opposite used to be true. I would be so over controlling that people would feel uncomfortable. Now I ask friends to bring whatever dish, without it all having to match the theme for the evening. If you plate your dish on something that doesn’t match what is on the table, that’s ok. Help yourself to whatever you want to drink. I’ve let it go.
I’m not going to lie, sometimes those controlling tendencies will pop up. It’s often if I’m feeling anxious and I have to remind myself that I’m safe. I’m ok. If you often feel like your controlling tendencies are making it difficult to breath, or for other people to breath freely around you, then let’s talk.
