'Trauma is Really Strange' by Steve Haines

Book review and summary

I’ve been thinking about sharing some thoughts on impactful books for a while, and I’m starting here with this book because it has been the most influential in my healing journey so far. My psychotherapist recommended it to me at a time when I was really struggling getting my head around the fact that my thoughts, reactions and experiences were normal responses to trauma. I had a deep belief that there was just something wrong with me; that I wasn’t ‘normal’, and I couldn’t seem to view this from a different perspective. Somewhere, I think my brain did know, but it was taking a minute to make a bit more sense of it, and to make sure I could handle it before committing one hundred percent to the new belief. So, it was at this time that I read ‘Trauma is Really Strange’. At the time just before my whole world changed - when I realised that what felt like everything I had learned and knew about myself was false, and the impact of that was incredibly destabilising but also hugely validating and liberating. I read and reread this book, finding it a source of comfort, grounding and a reality-check.

‘Trauma is Really Strange’ is a graphic book and is part of a boxset (The ‘Really Strange’ Boxset) written by Steve Haines, a bodyworker with a special interest in pain, trauma and anxiety (you can read more about him here). The artwork is by Sophie Standing, who specialises in health illustration (you can read more about her here). The book was perfect for me while I was in a place of trauma, because it breaks everything down simply and in the form of beautiful illustrations, which I found easy for to focus on and take in. For me, when experiencing a trauma response, it is almost impossible to focus on anything, and reading a complex book or listening to complex information is far beyond my capability. This book, however, got through to me, at a time when I was finding it difficult to move forward.

The book starts off in by setting a non-threatening, light and (appropriately) amusing tone:

It then goes on to define and explain what trauma is and how it manifests in the mind and body. The clear language, condensed explanations and perfectly-fitting images make concepts easy to understand and the book easy to follow. Towards the end of the book, there are practical suggestions of how to overcome trauma, which I found really helpful.

I’ll try to summarise the main points here.

What is trauma?

• Trauma is ‘anything that overwhelms our ability to cope’ (ref Peter Levine, 1998). This is relative and depends on the individual.

• The oldest part of our brain - the ‘reptilian’ part - deals with danger by activating the fight-or-flight or dissociation response.

• If this response is not ‘discharged’, the brain can jump to fight-or-flight or dissociation even after the danger has passed.

• The effect of the mind and body being stuck in fight-or-flight mode include losing the connection with our body, feeling far away or like an observer, racing thoughts and difficulty taking deep breaths.

The book provides three statements to help understand and overcome trauma:

1. There is trauma

• Bad things happen to humans.

• Trauma is not just a single event, it can be a period of events - there may not be an obvious event to pinpoint, but a complex range of experiences.

• Children’s brains are more vulnerable so trauma experienced while growing up can cause more damage (‘developmental trauma’).

2. We can overcome trauma

• We are wired to survive - trauma is part of our evolutionary process.

• We can emerge from trauma stronger and wiser.

3. Healing trauma is about meeting the body

• We don’t need to remember or understand in order to heal trauma, we need to change the body physiology.

• In trauma, the brain is acting as if the danger is still happening now - grounding ourselves in the present can change these overreactive reflexes.

• We can’t think or rationalise our way out of feeling trauma, as the old parts of the brain that deal with trauma can’t do these things. Instead, we need to use our body to feel our way up out of danger.

How can we overcome trauma?

• Go slowly - ‘health is built one step at a time’. If our thoughts, breathing, heart rate, emotions or movements are going more quickly than we can easily self-regulate, we should stop and change focus.

• Identify resources which help us feel safe, as ‘finding safety is the key to health’. Resources include anyone or anything that provides support (including objects, activities, pets, people etc).

• Find and name feelings inside or around us that we like, or remember a time we felt good, adding as much detail as possible. We need to remind our brains that we know what ‘good’ feels like

• When we are experiencing a trauma response, we can help ourselves by applying OMG (orient; move; ground):

  • Orient - we should become aware of where we are and what’s around us in the present moment. We can do this, for example, by counting or naming things we can see or hear. Additionally, we should seek eye contact if there are people around, as this can help orient and reassure us.

  • Move - moving will help us maintain conscious connection with our bodies. We can start small by, for example, wiggling our toes, pushing our hands together or pressing our feet into the ground.

  • Ground - this involves moving away from thinking and emotion, and focusing instead on exploring safe and specific sensations eg ‘I am ok because I can feel my feet on the ground, my skin against my clothes and the air coming in and out of my lungs’.

• Shaking can discharge tension and wake up the body.

• Seeking support from our community and from social interaction can help us to rediscover what ‘safe’ feels like.

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The most important things I learned from this book were that trauma isn’t necessarily one single event, and that we don’t have to remember or understand what happened to us in order to overcome trauma. I think I had been avoiding a lot of things that happened in my past, pretending they didn’t happen and that they don’t still affect me because I was afraid that overcoming them would involve going back over all those memories and I did not want to do that. Although I have acknowledged what happened, I haven’t had to delve into each memory, but instead have been able to start overcoming my trauma by focusing on my body in the present and learning to self-regulate. It’s a new way to approach problems - starting in my body to find a solution rather than thinking and rationalising, but I’m slowly getting the hang of it!

The quotes from the book that I found most impactful are:

You are not mad or broken

Whatever your belief system on meaning, and purpose in life, there is the very simple fact of the body. You are in a body right now. Learn how it works and embrace the messy, earthy ground of feeling

Losing contact with your body, and your ability to feel the joy and goodness inside you, is not a price worth paying, whatever has been done to you’

And finally, a reminder to…

Go slowly with anything that causes you to float away

If you’ve got this far, thanks for reading!