@coffeepizzaandwine: People experience trauma differently. As a therapist, I worked with one client who only had a missile fired in the direction of the ship he was on and he had one of the most severe cases of PTSD I’ve ever seen. I worked with another client who was in a jeep that got flipped over by an IED explosion and he indicated only minimal symptoms of PTSD. There is a layer of trauma that I refer to as “The Trauma of Losing Control” and by that, I mean losing control of your life. That layer can exacerbate the other layers of trauma. I define “The Trauma of Losing Control” as a form of trauma that occurs when a life-changing experience disrupts a person’s perceived ability to direct, predict, or influence their life, often combining existential distress with a persistent anxiety about maintaining control in the future. It often triggers the desire to give up because you realize there is too much in your life that you can’t and never will be able to control. The Trauma of Losing Control can stay with you even when you’ve regained a sense of agency. It reminds you that life took you to a place most people aren’t subjected to. Maybe someone else took away your sense of control, or maybe it was a set of life circumstances. Maybe you are like me and just made mistakes that caused you to abruptly lose control because you thought you were invincible. The Trauma of Losing Control can happen in every way possible with a probability almost impossible to calculate. It took me years of therapy (and several years of being a therapist helping others) to understand the trauma I experienced of losing control. It made me realize that a sense of “control” isn’t just having the ability to determine where you are in life, it’s making the best out of life despite the influence of life circumstances that you can’t control. (More can be found at coffeepizzaandwine.substack.com—link in bio) #MentalHealth #trauma #healing #philosophy

Vincent James

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Tuesday 23 June 2026 17:32:52 GMT