In the mental health field, there is a term used to describe our ability to change how we respond to any situation. This word is Agency. When we have agency, we have a sense of control over our lives and our behaviors.
In everyday life, this word is used as a title, giving the impression of an organization. In treating trauma, it means something similar: we can organize ourselves in such a way that we can respond to our feelings in a more productive way. For example, if we have been triggered to anger and our reaction is overblown and becomes a problem, we can find agency in understanding what the trigger is and in doing so, we find control.
When we experience trauma, any kind of trauma, such as the death of a dear loved one, a car accident, or a violation, whether it be physical, emotional, or spiritual, we often respond to it through our fear from the experience of what happened to us. It is in this fear that the trauma resides, as Dr. Gabor Mate says, "Trauma is not what happens to us, but what happens inside of us." And our responses to this trauma are either organized or disorganized. Healing from trauma is a journey from disorganized behavior to organized behavior.
Recovering from trauma is a journey from fear to thriving through finding agency. This process is a three-pronged process: it starts with grief, then identifying our mindset of moving through victimhood, and finally finding our agency. I'll get into this further in the next half of the show.
Touching on the subject of agency, how finding agency in regards to how we are behaving in reaction to a trauma can change our responses to the experience.
If we have one big trauma, this can keep us locked down emotionally. However, if intervention proceeds soon after the trauma, we can often work through the fear quickly and our maladaptive behaviors are minimal, causing us less long-lasting affect. If, however, we experience a number of traumas, starting at birth, through our childhood and into adulthood, this is known as Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). These experiences are often very difficult to rearrange, and finding agency after a great deal of trauma is difficult but not impossible.
I believe finding agency is a three-pronged process. The first phase of the process is grieving. It is necessary to acknowledge and face the pain of the experience. Once we have grieved, felt the fear, the anger, and the helplessness we often feel when we've been traumatized, this then sets us up for the ability to look at the situation we are in from a clearer mindset. This is when the second phase of the process comes to light. Our mindset: are we a victim of our trauma or are we able to see our trauma as an experience and not let it define us, leading us to resolve the trauma?
If we can look at our experience honestly and are sure we are not holding on to the experience as an excuse to behave in certain ways or use the experience to prevent ourselves from doing certain things, we might then see how we are allowing the trauma to keep us locked into victimhood. Being a victim is a mindset. If we see ourselves as a victim, we can never really find the strength to step out of where we are and find agency. We only find agency once we have grieved the experience, confronted whether we see ourselves as a victim, and are willing to no longer perceive ourselves as such. We are then able to have clarity and take control of the outcome and change our behaviors.
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