My fascination with all things dark and shadowy began at my birth. Born blue and not breathing, I was resuscitated and placed in a humicrib, separated from my mother. This disruption to my attachment bond sent my orientation reflex into hyperdrive, and began my desperate search to reconnect with my life-supporting mothership.
The current definitions for psychological and emotional trauma are too narrow and fail to capture the range of conditions and symptoms that can result from life’s distressing events. To exclude “mental distress” and “suffering” from the definition of trauma is analogous to excluding berries and citrus from the definition of fruit. We need to rethink our definition of psychological and emotional trauma and expand it. It is my contention that psychological trauma is far more prevalent and ubiquitous than we can measure.