I’ve heard quite a few people talk about not having been traumatized enough for their trauma to really count. I love me a good metaphor, and I think spoon theory and fork theory can be useful in explaining how little-t trauma (i.e repeated smaller stressors) can cause serious damage just like big-T trauma can.
Spoons as coping resources
Spoon theory, first described by Christine Miserandino, is a way of describing limited resources in chronic illness. To cope with stressors, you need spoons (i.e. energy/resources) available to deal with them. Chronic illness, as well as difficult life circumstances, can severely deplete one’s supply of spoons. The fewer spoons there are available, the less stress it takes to overwhelm the capacity to cope.
Forks as stress pokes
Fork theory was first described by Jen Rose to describe the effect of cumulative stressors that can get you to the point of “stick a fork in me, I’m done.” I see small-t stressors as fitting well with forks. Individual fork pokes may not be enough to cause serious damage, but the cumulative damage of multiple fork pokes can kick the crap out of you.
Yet if you tell other people about your forks, they might wonder what the big deal is. If other people treat your fork pokes as if they don’t “count,” it can be harder to convince yourself that they do.
Knives as bigger traumas
I think of big-T traumas as being more like knives. A single stab, depending on how it’s delivered, can do massage damage. The impact of these is more obvious, both to the self and to others.
People can conceive of a knife stab being able to do serious and potentially lasting damage. It’s a lot more obvious than the effects of multiple forks. People may still not get what it actually feels like, but they’re more likely to acknowledge that knives “count” as trauma.
Pastry blenders as ongoing trauma
Pastry blenders aren’t sharp like knives, but they do a lot of slicing. Even if they’re not slicing deeply, it’s a lot going on, and that can add up quickly.
A pastry blender might look like a pretty innocuous thing to someone who isn’t low on spoons or hasn’t been exposed to a lot of knives and forks. If you tell someone about it, they’re not going to get as concerned as if you were stabbed by a knife. But you’re still left sliced and diced.
Using the stress bucket model
The stress bucket model is another way to capture the effects of big-T and little-t trauma. A single big-T traumatic event might flood your bucket all in one go. However, your bucket can also flood if you have repeated little-t traumas filling up your bucket faster than you have the coping capacity to release the associated stress. Either way, your bucket can still end up getting flooded, no matter how small each individual little-t trauma might be.
What do these metaphors mean?
I like metaphors, but they don’t work for everyone, and that’s okay. The underlying point is that you don’t have to have obvious big-T traumas for it to count. If you’ve been through things that overwhelm your ability to cope, that deserves recognition (from you, even if other people are too blind to see it). There shouldn’t have to be a competition around whether “enough” bad things happen to you to be worth recognizing. If things have negatively affected you, you deserve compassion (and self-compassion), and you deserve to find healing.
As for other people that think you weren’t hurt/stressed/traumatized “enough,” their inability or unwillingness to validate you is a problem with them, not with you.
Does this way of looking at big-T and little-t trauma make any sense to you? Do you have a hard time feeling like what’s happened to you is bad “enough”?
The Coping Toolkit page has a broad collection of resources to support mental health and well-being.
Pastry blenders, I like that! Metaphors are good for grasping the nature of something like this. What about smaller fork traumas that aren’t necessarily repeated, ie. someone who may have experienced one or two things but for whom these are experienced as big traumas, perhaps because of other factors at that time, ie. generalised anxiety, low self-confidence, lack of support, lack of social circle, etc? x
I think that anything that really affects us is valid and deserves to be recognized for the effect that it’s had. More validation!
This is interesting. I did have to google pastry blender, though.
I do think there’s a difference between big t, ongoing big t and little t trauma. Can little t accumulate? Yes. Is my trauma or your trauma worse than each others? No. I don’t think so. They are different. I think many people down okay their trauma. It’s their lived experience and they don’t know any different so it’s just there I guess.
I am over hearing people just it’s trauma in relation to an event. I guess I see a difference between a traumatic event say a car accident and trauma.
What are your thoughts on the dandelion and the orchid and how that theory fits with little t trauma?
Down play I meant.
I hadn’t heard of the dandelion and the orchid theory, but that fits with what I’ve read about resilience being a combination of innate and learned factors.
I agree that trauma isn’t inherent in an event. Multiple people may go through the same event and have very different reactions. I think what makes something traumatic comes down to whether or not it overwhelms the brain’s ability to process it and cope, and that’s such an individual thing. That’s kind of what I was thinking about in terms of lack of spoons; it’s not exactly the same thing, but not everyone has the same level of resources available to cope with difficult events.
Yup! This is exactly it. This whole article and this comment are trauma therapist approved 🙂 I can’t wait to see some of your other work!
Thanks!
Ashley, we just learned about PTSD Cup theory, which seems related to the cutlery examples 🥤
I hadn’t heard of cup theory before. Interesting!
I love this post. I am siting in this right now and it’s important for me to remember it goes along with how I see things not others.
Yes, things that affect us have meaning, regardless of what anyone else sees.