Personal Power: Can Someone Feel Powerless If They Experienced Childhood Trauma?

It has been said that the more in control someone feels, the better their mental and emotional health will be. This is not to say that someone needs to be a total control freak and to control everyone and everything in order to be in a good place.

What it comes down to is that when one has a sense of control and can see that they have an effect on their life, it will have a positive effect on their wellbeing. It is not exactly hard to comprehend why this would be so.

One Experience

When one feels as though they have control over their life, there will be the effect it has on their mood, as was said above, and there will be the impact that it has on their behaviour. If they feel the need to do or to achieve something, they won’t need to ignore what is taking place inside them.

Thanks to how they feel, then, they will be able to pay attention to their needs and to go about fulfilling them. This doesn’t mean that they will be able to fulfil every need that they have, but at the same time, they won’t be in a position where their needs generally go unmet.

Drawing the Line

If there is an area of their life that is not going well or someone is not treating them with respect, they will believe that they can do something about it. After all, they have control.

And if they are unable to do something about what is taking place, they could exercise their control by voting with their feet, as Stuart Wilde would say. This means that they will walk away and direct their energy elsewhere.

In Balance

One is not going to have absolute control, yet they will have control over what they do and how they respond to what takes place in their life. Perhaps one has always been like this or maybe, this is a relatively new way of being.

Either way, what is taking place inside them, along with how they respond to life, is going to serve them. They may find that they very rarely get angry or feel down, due to the outlook that they typically have.

Another Experience

When one seldom experiences a sense of control and believes that they don’t have an effect on their life, it is naturally going to have a negative effect on their mood. Their behaviour is typically likely to reflect how they see themselves.

In general, they could behave in a very passive manner; not taking action or going for what they want. And if they are treated badly, they could just put up with it in most cases.

No Choice

From the outside, it could seem strange as to why they don’t just change their behaviour and embrace the life that they have been given. Yet, based on what is going on for them, simply tolerating what is going on will be seen as the only option that is available to them.

Their life won’t be fulfilling but they won’t believe that there is anything that they can do to change it. One thing that they may come to mind is that they can gain a sense of control by manipulating others; however, this might not interest them in the slightest.

Emotional Collapse

In addition to feeling as though they have no control over their life, there may be moments when they end up hitting rock bottom. This could be a time when they sink right down into themselves and feel totally helpless and powerless.

At other times, they could feel extremely depressed and wonder if their life is actually worth living. There could be other moments when they go the other way and end up being consumed by rage.

A Deeper Look

It would be easy to say that this person is not powerless and that they just need to change their thoughts and behaviour. Another way of looking at this would be to say that this person is carrying a lot of trauma, which is why they are unable to embrace the power and control that they have.

Through carrying trauma, it will be the difference between being splashed by water and being immersed in water. It won’t just be something that affects how they think or even feel; it will have permeated their whole being.

Weighed Down

Furthermore, they may find that when they do feel helpless and powerless, their body often ends up going very tight and they feel trapped. What this will illustrate is that they have gone into freeze mode, which is a survival response.

Clearly, this is not just about their mind; it is about their whole being. If they were to merely change their thoughts or their behaviour, it is highly unlikely that it would have both a dramatic and lasting effect on them.

Back In Time

For one to understand why they are this way, they will probably need to take the time to think about what took place during their early years. If they are able to remember what took place, they may find that this was a time when they were abused and/or neglected.

Irrespective of what happened, they would have regularly felt overwhelmed and as though they had no control. At this stage of their life they didn’t have any control, but now that they are an adult, this is not the case.

Awareness

To truly understand this, they will most likely need to let go of the trauma that is inside them. This is something that can take place with the assistance of a therapist or a healer.