Title: The Crossroads of When Trauma Meets Identity
By Ena Cesar, Epione Associate
When we talk about trauma, what it is at its core is our mind’s and body’s response to an event (or multiple events) that was perceived as so distressing that it went mbeyond our ability to cope and created a lasting impact on how we go on to act and interact with the world and ourselves. It’s like it creates an invisible wound that at times sends shockwaves both mentally and sometimes even physically. It can be difficult to believe that anything could ever feel safe for us again. What a challenging thing that would be to navigate on its own, but when the contextual layers of personal identity are added – it becomes an even more intricate path to healing and understanding.
The lens of intersectionality allows us to consider and explore how different parts of who we are (like our culture, gender, race, sexuality, neurotype) come together to mshape our experiences in and of the world. Because a person cannot practically separate one aspect of their identity from the other, it is important to recognise that these parts are interconnected and jointly affect our experiences and responses to traumatic events – that is partly why the impact of trauma is so deeply “personalised” and varies from person to person instead of it being a uniform phenomenon across the board.
To illustrate, the experience of someone who is part of the LGBTQ+ community is that we live in a world that inherently tells us who we are is different; is not “normal” in the sense that being heterosexual or cis-gendered is the “norm”, so whoever exists outside of that collective norm is automatically “othered” in some way, and does not benefit from the safety of being part of the norm. This means that although we may already face trauma from general life, there are also specific stressors related to that part of our identity, such as discrimination.
Considering people are rarely just one thing or another, you can see how there can be even more layers to this. For example, neurodivergent people may experience the world a lot differently than someone who is considered neurotypical, which may mmake some experiences more likely to feel traumatic, perhaps due to the lack of appropriate accommodations or differences in societal expectations. T o add another example, a person’s cultural background can further have an impact on the type of stressors they experience, including exclusion and access (or lack thereof) to resources. As an immigrant, when I first moved to the UK, for every welcoming person there always seemed to be another barrier to face as a painful reminder that there is a long way to go before being “just an eternal guest” can start feeling more like being “at home”.It is important to then understand how when these aspects of our identity overlap, it adds to the complexity of our experience and they cannot be excluded from our care when we embark on our healing journeys.
Intersectionality in the context of trauma-informed care can start small, in our interpersonal interactions with each other. Knowing that you are not alone in your experience and that there is hope can make a world of difference, so peer support can be a way to both demonstrate belonging and potentially spark improvements in the person’s mental health (Cooper et al., 2024) as well as empower them by creating a safe space to share these experiences. In cases where systemic barriers are the reason a person cannot access certain opportunities like services or resources, peer support can especially become almost a lifeline that provides shared understanding. Equally, self-reflection can help us identify our own biases and how these influence our interactions and judgements.
What this piece is really trying to say is that in a world where the most marginalised among us are disproportionately affected by trauma (Williams et al., 2023), the effectiveness of trauma-informed care hinges on embracing intersectionality and remaining aware of the nuanced experiences around us.
