Are you still suffering from trauma?
You’ve probably experienced a traumatic event at some point in your life. While it’s natural to feel scared or overwhelmed in the aftermath of an upsetting incident, for some people, these feelings don’t go away easily. In fact, they may actually get worse over time, leading to debilitating anxiety, depression, and even Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). If you’re still dealing with the effects of past trauma, there is hope.
Friends welcome back. Today’s guest is psychiatrist Dr. Paul Conti. I’m so excited to have him on the show, and in this episode, we discuss why it is so hard for us to talk about our shame, the three biggest lies that we tell ourselves, how to heal from trauma without reliving it, and so much more. Our conversation was truly inspiring, so be ready with your notes because the information he shared can help us improve the quality of our thoughts, emotions, and lives.
Who Is Dr. Paul Conti?
Dr. Paul Conti is a graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine. He was appointed Chief Resident, and he completed his psychiatry training at Stanford and at Harvard University. He also served as a medical faculty at Harvard before founding his own clinic.
As a psychiatrist, Dr. Paul Conti is adept at helping others untangle complex problems, incorporating a holistic view of each patient or client into his work by understanding the extent of impact trauma can affect on communities or systems where the individual serves, works, or resides. He also offers business, legal and personal consulting services on top of his clinical practice, and he’s written a new book called Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic: How Trauma Works and How We Can Heal From It.
I was so inspired by this work because I feel like so many of us have dealt with different types of traumas in our life — from our childhood to adolescence and to our adult lives. Sometimes we’re not even aware of the types of trauma we’re facing.
Why Is It So Hard for Us to Talk About Our Shame?
There are a lot of things that people are ashamed to talk about. Trauma is definitely one of them. People feel like they have to bottle everything up and deal with it on their own, but that’s not always the best way to go about it. In fact, it can often make things worse.
“More often than not, there’s an undercurrent of trauma that, unless that’s thought about and addressed, we’re kind of like polishing the hood, when we need to get under the hood and really get into the engine. There’s a mental health system that loves polishing the hood. … We kind of want to spruce things up and make them look a certain way and not look at what’s really going on underneath the surface. … [There’s a] sort of reflexive creation of shame when a person suffers trauma — the sort of immediacy of that sense of shame and the response to it — to keep everything inside.” – Paul Conti
Oftentimes people who are suffering from trauma don’t look like they have a problem at all. This is because many people try to hide their problems and deal with them on their own. Trauma can be very isolating and embarrassing, so it’s no wonder that so many people try to keep it hidden.
“Shame is synonymous with the message of, ‘You must keep this secret.’ And if shame is evoked, … then the reflexive shame is in and of itself a message of secrecy. And that’s why … people are carrying burdens around with them. And you can look from the outside and tell ‘This person has achieved this and this person has achieved that,’ and you know, what we see from the outside is so often not at all reflective of what’s going on inside.” – Paul Conti
When people think of those who have suffered from a traumatic experience, they often imagine someone who is visibly upset and struggling. However, many people who suffer from trauma don’t look like they’re having a problem at all. Trauma can impact individuals in many different ways, and not everyone experiences it in the same way. This means that you can’t always tell if someone has been affected by trauma just by looking at them. In fact, many people with traumatic histories are able to function relatively normally in their everyday lives. It’s important to remember that just because someone doesn’t seem like they’re struggling doesn’t mean they aren’t dealing with trauma.
