Trauma and Decision-Making

We make the wrong decisions when we act from a place of hurt, fear or trauma. For instance, I was emotionally closed-off and armoured when I started dating. I would repeat the same patterns (pick narcissistic and emotionally unavailable men – boys to be fair). I was doing so because it was the only love I knew, it was the love I received as a child.  I was making the wrong decisions – rejecting the right people and wanting the unavailable partners because I hadn’t healed trauma around my own self-worth.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t even recognize our own trauma because we are so “used to it” – to behaving or reacting a certain way.  We are so wound up in it that we don’t see it, and we don’t know what to fix. 

Ego and Trauma

An individual may have grown up in an environment where that “behaviour” (trauma-response) was normal, and usually the individual believes that “the lens” through which they see the world is the only correct lens. Being unable to see one’s own trauma is usually deeply tied to ego.  The bigger the ego, the less a person is able to see things from another angle.

Pattern Recognition

They may only realize their trauma later in life. Once they find themselves repeating the same patterns, in toxic relationships, unhappy situations, feeling incomplete or disassociated. 

Once I was able to drop my ego, show adequate self-respect, high self-worth and self-esteem, did I have respectable boundaries with a significant other.  I then went from having an armoured heart to opening my heart to the right person.