Ambiguous trauma is that which originates from repeated developmental experiences of emotional neglect or abandonment. An ambiguity that relates to what was missing throughout development or that which has been lost over time.
Rather than overt abuse or clear incidents of harm, ambiguous trauma is the hidden heartache that comes from not being able to clearly define or articulate various experiences throughout childhood that have left us feeling a disconnection between the knowing (implicit, interoceptive, and intuit knowledge of the authentic Self) and the known (explicit, ‘factual’, and learned knowledge from Others and the World).
These various experiences of disconnection may have been repeated instances where, in order to remain in close proximity to our caregivers or to the various collectives we belong to (attachment), we had to suppress or relinquish certain parts of ourselves or our personality (authenticity).
That is, order to survive we instinctively began to internalise the dichotomy between attachment and authenticity, making the necessary choice toward attachment (to the caregiver or to the collective). This then creating non-conscious states or traits that suppress our authentic sense of Self; a suppression of our instinctive emotional-motivational drives that offers some level of attachment.
With this in mind, ambiguous trauma is thus the trauma of emotional isolation within a time where being seen, heard, understood, accepted, valued, and even delighted in is imperative to one’s sense of identity and belonging; the overwhelming feeling of emotional separation and the felt sense that one does not make sense, or that one is ashamedly ‘different’ or ‘wrong’ when acting from an authentic sense of Self.
Ambiguous trauma is the trauma of confusion, uncertainty, and insecurity – a vague betrayal often beyond fathomable comprehension.
It is important here to give credit and to note that whilst ambiguous trauma is similar to Pauline Boss’s original and highly regarded conceptualisation of ambiguous loss, specifically in the recognition that ambiguity within loss is inherently traumatic due to our inability to find completion or closure to distress, ambiguous trauma is a succinct manner of articulating Boss’s second type of ambiguous loss, specifically as it relates to the development of ones sense of Self with identity and belonging. That is, when a primary caregiver is physically present and psychologically or relationally absent during an infant or child’s development there is a form of ambiguity wherein ongoing cycles of disconnection create levels of internal fragmentation and an ungrounded sense of being. Such fragmentation and ungroundedness leaving one in unending uncertainty in perpetual isolation and alarmed aloneness.
Indeed, in ambiguous trauma there is a desperate need to be seen, heard, understood, accepted, valued, and even delighted in that drives a never-ending hope; a hope that paradoxically perpetuates the fragmented and ungrounded pain of the past whilst all the while protecting one’s Self from a felt sense of life-threatening overwhelm and confusion.
With due credit to the amazing work of Pauline Boss – https://www.ambiguousloss.com/
