Why Trauma Causes Overexplaining
If you have been through some type of traumatic experience, your head can feel very loud. It may feel impossible to shut off your thoughts. You may run through various scenarios many times over in attempts to anticipate every possible permutation. This can leave you exhausted, frustrated, and often times frozen.
The need to justify yourself
“No” is a complete sentence. Unfortunately, with trauma, survivors often feel like they need to explain and justify their response. Imagine this scenario, your extended family asks to get together for a holiday weekend. You have been working long hours and caretaking for your own family. Maybe your relationship with your significant other is being neglected, let alone your relationship with yourself. Instead of politely declining, you convey how busy you are, including all your children’s activities.
You may even start to attempt to accept the invitation despite the nagging recognition that you simply do not have the energy right now. If the trauma stems from your family, engaging with them may deplete you rather than restore you. Deep down you may know this to be true. But there is still a nagging feeling that you are doing something wrong and that your “no” will not be accepted.
Trouble trusting your own experience
It is a completely normal experience for trauma survivors to question and sometimes even deny what has happened to them. When the pain is too great and not able to be contained, minimizing often occurs. Unfortunately, this isn’t only about the trauma itself. It bleeds over into all areas of life and relationships. Reassurance may be sought. But if seeking it from others who are emotionally unavailable, you may end up just as confused as when you began and in a spiral of overexplaining yourself again.
Devalued worth and feelings that are invalidated
When there has been a boundary crossing, we are taught that our own experiences and own sense of self do not matter. You may hide your true feelings from others and worry about inconveniencing or harming them in some way. In addition, you may fail to consider that your feelings and experience are worth attending to. After years, sometimes decades of this pattern, you can begin to value yourself and put yourself first.
Feeling marked or damage
Another common occurrence with trauma is to feel bad about yourself. Often, you may feel marked in some way or damaged. When other hard circumstances happen in your life, you may attribute it to being punished or not deserving of good things. This can also lead to catastrophizing where your brain takes a discomfort or ambiguity and immediately jumps to the worst case scenario. This is how your brain is trying to protect you.
Attempts at control
As you were robbed of control in the trauma, you may now be faced with the compulsive urge to provide excessive content or details beyond what the situation requires. You may not even realize you do this, as it may be a knee jerk reaction. You expect yourself to be ready for every scenario in your hypervigilance. However, no one can be prepared for the truly unexpected. Life is full of surprises.
You can get out of the spin cycle. Through trauma therapy, we can calm the voices in your head and recognize the way overexplaining is no longer serving you. We can help you learn to relax without anxiety and trust your own feelings and experiences. We can pave the path to freedom together. Reach out today so see if therapy with a trauma therapist is right for you.