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098-over-explaining-as-a-trauma-response

Amy Hoyt20min

Speaker 1

00:02

Welcome to the mending trauma podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Amy Hoyt. And along with my sister Lena Hoyt, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, we want to help you recover from trauma, whether it's childhood trauma, complex trauma, PTSD, or any other trauma sustained from abuse or narcissistic relationships. We want to help you develop skills and ways that can help you to recover from the symptoms and the effects of trauma. We are so glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hi, welcome back to another episode of our podcast. And we are so excited. This is the first episode with our renamed podcast, we decided to rename the podcast to mending trauma because that is more aligned with the name of our company and what we are doing. So mending trauma is absolutely the same podcast as the universe's your therapist. It's Lena and I talking about healing trauma and complex trauma, and all of the behaviors and symptoms that come out of trauma and how to overcome them. And we are just a renamed podcast now. Welcome, everybody.

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

01:15

We're glad you're here for the transition.

Speaker 1

01:19

Okay, so today's episode is something that came out of a conversation Lena and I were having earlier this week. And it's something I've been noticing a lot in my own life the last few months. And it's about how we as complex trauma survivors, or people with C PTSD use over explaining or over communicating as a trauma response. That's me with like, mind blown, because when I first heard about this symptom, it instantly made sense to me that that is why I have constantly been over explaining and kind of justifying everything I say, and trying to back everything up by research and, you know, almost trying to convince people without realizing it, that I was doing it trying to convince people of my point. And so let's contextualize that what is that about? Why do we over explain and over communicate as a trauma response, Lina,

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

02:20

it is an indication that in our childhood, in our significant relationships with character givers are parents that we did not have the experience of being seen and heard. And this can run the gamut between having a parent with perhaps a personality disorder. And they had so little ability to regulate their emotions, that they couldn't not actually connect with us emotionally in a consistent fashion. But it can also be the other extreme where we had so much neglect, that when we tried to get our needs met, our parents were in attentive, and so we kept trying to explain so that they would understand so that they would actually help us.

Speaker 1

03:09

That's great. I also know that it can happen when that child's role in the family has been one of being at fault a lot. And we call that the scapegoat, where the problems of the family are kind of attributed to one particular child, and that's the focus. And so that can happen when you're the scapegoat as well. And tell us kind of how, how this shows up in adulthood? What does it look like?

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

03:47

Sure. I started realizing it about eight years ago in my private practice as a marriage and family therapist in California. And what I realized is that some of my clients would, as they were talking to me would over explain, as if they were worried that I wouldn't believe them or that I wouldn't understand or that I would not validate their experience. And as I got really curious about that, in my sessions, I started realizing that a lot of these adult clients had parents that were extremely emotionally dysregulated. Whether because of multi generational trauma, or because of the addiction transmission process throughout the generations, or because of personality traits or disorders that they had. And it really started tugging at my heart. And so I started asking people, it sounds like you're worried that I'm not going to understand you. Can I say back to you what I'm hearing. And so I would say back to them what I was hearing. And it was interesting because it would be like a release in their body, you could see it almost in their body language. But also, it allowed them to stop putting as much energy and effort into making sure that I understood them or believed them. And it was a really effective tool to use, working with people who were scapegoated as kids or who were told that their feelings were wrong. Or if they shared a feeling, the parent would say, No, that's not true. That's not how you feel. So became really powerful way of engaging and connecting with my clients.

Speaker 1

05:48

I love that. And I think as someone who's been in talk therapy, as well as been part of 12 Step programs, and other therapeutic interventions, validation. To me, it instantly puts my nervous system at rest. And we talk a lot about the nervous system and how the nervous system responds. During trauma, and after trauma, and if we haven't had that trauma resolved, our nervous system gets stuck in a trauma response. So one of the things that overexplaining does, and just rewinding a little bit, one of the things that validation does is it instantly can relax the nervous system. But going back to the trauma responses, I'm aware that overexplaining is actually a trauma response in the fawn response. So we hear a lot about Fight, Flight freeze, people are very, very familiar with those trauma responses. Fawn is a little less known about and the fawn response typically is a submissive response. It can be attributed a lot of times people link it to people pleasing, but over explaining falls in the fawn response. And I think what's interesting is what I've noticed in my own trauma recovery journey, is there are a lot of symptoms that started to fall away early or in my journey. So I would do my nervous system work, I would you know, I went to talk therapy for a lot of years I did EMDR. I've done neurofeedback, I've done a lot, a lot of tools to help with recovering from complex trauma, domestic violence and other traumas that I've had as an adult. So I've won the trauma lottery, like a lot of our listeners.

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

07:49

Congratulations.

Speaker 1

07:52

You get another trauma. And so this is not just for childhood trauma. But what I've noticed is a lot of the symptoms kind of fell by the wayside along my recovery journey, but the over explaining was very persistent for me. And I just want to call that out for any of our listeners who are, first of all surprised that overexplaining is a trauma response. And second of all, like thinking, I've been on this journey for a long time, I've been working on myself, and I'm still overexplaining, it's okay. We're all we all have symptoms, and they pop up. And they stay until we are aware of, of what's happening. And so one of the points of this episode is to create awareness that this is a trauma response. It's a symptom.

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

08:44

Exactly. I think that's super well said, when when we're trying to heal. If we don't have the ability to use awareness and insight, then we are greatly limited in our ability to change and healing requires change. So I love that you called out the awareness piece of it. And you talked a little bit about how awareness helped you can you share it with our listeners?

Speaker 1

09:12

Yeah, so I was thinking about this. I was in a meeting earlier this week. And, you know, as I said, I've become more and more aware of my overexplaining propensity. And I have to say, going into academia did not help me in overcoming over explaining because part of academia is you have a argument that you write and then you you pick it apart and you explain why you're correct, and perhaps someone else is incorrect. And you back it up with evidence after evidence after evidence. And so anyone in academia will recognize this as the way we communicate. In the academic world. We write things and we over explain the heck out of them. And that's good research. So there, there are parts of us that we really need this research to be effective in changing the world. And since that was part of my work life for 20 plus years, it really concretize that habit of over explaining. As I became aware that this was problematic in my personal life, I started to catch myself. So I would be writing a text set, let's say something like, I'm too tired to go to the movies tonight, or I've changed my mind, I'm not I'm feeling typically at night, I start to feel a little less energy and sometimes a little more depressed. It's not quite depression, but it's kind of like, oh, I want to just stay in bed and hunker down. It's eight o'clock at night. And I'm, I'm going to change my plans. So this is a common, I think, a common thing among a lot of us. So typically, my text would be, Hey, girl, I'm really tired. I've had a really long week. So and so how did have this medical procedure? I had this happen to me did it, it did a five more sentences. I'm sorry, I'm not gonna make it tonight. I love you so much. And I value our friendship, love you, and that, and I'm being sincere. So it's like five paragraphs of why I can't fulfill my social obligation. So as I become aware of this, I'm trying to, as I text, ask myself, Am I over explaining right now? And if so, why? Am I worried that they're going to be mad at me for canceling plans? Am I worried that they're going to feel rejected? Because I can feel very sensitive about other people's feelings? And so the awareness has cultivated a curiosity for me, where I'm really curious why I need to write five paragraphs in a text about a decision I've made. And Lena, you know, Elena's phrase that I love so much is benevolent curiosity. And so as I've gotten curious, I've tried to be very kind to myself about it like, Huh, that's interesting, Amy, why, why do you need eight sentences telling them that you're not going to be on time for the meeting? That's super interesting. What's going on here? Anywho. So I was in a meeting earlier this week, and I noticed myself wanting deeply to over explain. And it was the, I think it was the first time that I noticed the urge to kind of justify a an opinion. And I just sat with it. Instead of doing it, I just sat with it. And it was really uncomfortable. Afterwards, I wanted to cry. I felt like I was gonna cry, my voice was breaking. And when it comes down to it, I realized that I was worried I would be misunderstood or I would be rejected. And those trigger early early childhood wounds for me. And so as I sat with it throughout the day, I was able to, I guess, become used to that uncomfortable feeling.

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

13:18

Yes. And mostly what's at the bottom of this is this survival wire that says, if I'm not understood, then I'm not going to survive. And again, typically, it comes out of our childhood relationships and the attachment issues there. And whatever trauma we have in our relationships as children, and it's it really, there's a part of your brain that really thinks you're going to be annihilated if you're not understood. And so the idea then becomes, how do I tolerate this distress for a few minutes because what that does is it widens your window of tolerance. And it allows you to be present with the emotion without having to have a knee jerk or a pressured response. And what you're doing Amy actually is beautiful, because that is the epitome of self regulation. Other Other regulation would be explaining and explaining explain till somebody gives you some reassurance or agrees with you. And so when you are having benevolent curiosity towards this process, increasing your awareness, tolerating the discomfort of not explaining, you are widening your window of tolerance. You are setting up new neural pathways for self regulation. And it's just really remarkable how effective You've been able to be at that this week. It's just great. Well, thank you,

Unknown Speaker

15:04

sister.

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

15:07

life crisis therapy, welcome. Yeah.

Speaker 1

15:14

You know, as you're speaking, I was thinking of one other type of trauma or abuse that I see this a lot where we overexplain, and that's when you've been involved in a narcissistic relationship. And I'm going back to my first marriage to a narcissist who was also physically violent. And thinking, there are so many clients we work with who are getting out of narcissistic relationships. And the, the process of being involved with someone who is unable to see you, to validate you to create connection with you, because that is at the core of narcissism where you know, it's about them. It's not about you, that also produces this sense of feeling unseen, unheard, and completely discounted. And that's also going to produce this type of over communication that we're talking about.

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

16:17

Great point, that is absolutely true. And the other thing is that when you've been in an abusive relationship, whether it's with a person who has some personality traits, or disorder, or has addiction, or raging or mental health issues, when you're in a relationship like that, it's so illogical and unreasonable, so many times, and their responses are so blame shifting and almost like you're living in the twilight zone, because they're insisting on this, there perceived reality, which really has very little to do with what actually happened. And the human brain is designed to look for logic and reason. And to explain that in the hopes that the person we're engaging with has been very unreasonable and illogical, will somehow get back on track of like being based in reality. And that may be kind of an exaggerated explanation on my part, but I really see this a lot. Where people are tricked. It's gaslighting. Absolutely, so much gaslighting that you start thinking, Wait, am I crazy? Or are they crazy? Yeah. Yeah, except for that doesn't come until further along in the relationship where you start realizing this is so weird and off? Off. Yes. Off the great word for it. Yeah. I love then how you've talked about how we can have this symptom from our childhood. But we can also develop a symptom when we've had relational trauma in our adult lives. And that's an important thing to add, because so many of us have had one or both.

Speaker 1

18:10

Yeah, exactly. And when we have relational trauma in childhood complex trauma, or C PTSD, we are set up, unfortunately, to have relational trauma in adulthood unless we are able to get the help that we need. And so you're right, a lot of us have had both. And so one of the things I know we both feel really strongly about is helping people just be aware of the symptoms of trauma, no matter when the trauma occurred, because awareness, the research shows, in and of itself, awareness is one of the first steps in your recovery journey. Yep.

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

18:55

I love this. I'm so glad we had a chance to talk about this today. I we could go on for longer. It's such a fascinating topic. But we we hope all of you who have been listening have enjoyed this and found some ways to apply it to your own sense of self and self compassion and your own healing journey.

Unknown Speaker

19:13

Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next week.

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

19:15

Take care. Bye bye.

Speaker 1

19:18

Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The mending trauma podcast. Elaine and I are really grateful that you spend time with us each week we know you have a choice and that time is currency. We would love if you would share this episode on social media and tag us so we can reshare if you feel so inclined, go and give us a five star review wherever you listen to pod so that we can get the word out and help more people. We know that we are all working hard on our mental health and we wish you great success this week and implementing these new skills we'll check in next week.

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