The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture

by Gabor Maté

The meaning of the word “trauma,” in its Greek origin, is “wound.” Whether we realize it or not, it is our woundedness, or how we cope with it, that dictates much of our behavior, shapes our social habits, and informs our ways of thinking about the world.

Children, especially highly sensitive children, can be wounded in multiple ways: by bad things happening, yes, but also by good things not happening, such as their emotional needs for attunement not being met, or the experience of not being seen and accepted, even by loving parents.

People bearing trauma’s scars almost uniformly develop a shame-based view of themselves at the core, a negative self-perception most of them are all too conscious of. Among the most poisonous consequences of shame is the loss of compassion for oneself. The more severe the trauma, the more total that loss.

It is sobering to realize that many of the personality traits we have come to believe are us, and perhaps even take pride in, actually bear the scars of where we lost connection to ourselves, way back when.

“Edie,” I said, “I haven’t got over it yet, and here I am, seventy-six years later.” She laughed gently. “Gabor, perhaps you never will. You don’t need to. You just need to allow yourself to be with it.” Nothing needed to change, Edith was reminding me: only how I held my history in my mind.