How Body-Centered Therapy Can Help You with Oppression Trauma

Oppression trauma is real. It’s a complex form of trauma that happens to people because of their real or perceived membership in a marginalized group, over and over with no way to fight, flee or hide from it. It happens to you, or people who are like you, so much that you know it could happen to you at any time. Black people don’t need to have been suspected of a crime to know they could be accused of one or indiscriminately shot. Women don’t have to have been sexually assaulted to know that it could happen to them and that a male assailant will be protected while she will be scrutinized. Trans and gender-non-conforming folks don’t need to get threatened in a bathroom to know it could happen to them at any point.

Oppression targets your body—its skin and features, genitals, ability, or spiritual or cultural routines—and makes it wrong. It tries to make your body seem like it’s less deserving of resources—time, love, work, dignity, rights. Oppression trauma happens to the body. But, the body is also the way through the trauma.

Scenario

Jake was feeling pretty numb. He had a flat affect and didn’t have a lot of interest in things. He didn’t really want to talk about it because, ‘what’s the point? It’s not going to change anything anyway.” He could get lost in his head or in a video game for hours, but ask him to hang out with people and he wanted to leave within a minute. He had difficulty trusting folks.

When asked about work, Jake says he likes his job, but hates the people and has been fired or let go of several jobs for no reason. Instead of assuming that this string of events must be the result of poor decisions on Jake’s part, I ask him if he’d be willing to tell me about the last time he remembers a scenario that typifies what he experiences. However, I ask that we do it with a somatic (body-centered) focus, slowing down to allow the body to express what it needs to. Jake agrees.

We first do a body scan to have a baseline of Jake’s sensations. Jake notices his hands and feet are warm and his chest is tight, rounding his shoulders forward. The rest of his body feels numb.

We speak in present tense language about the event because the parts of the brain that store trauma respond, remember and operate only in the present. Jake is at the restaurant, where he works, prepping his silverware. It’s a slow day and it’s the afternoon. There are no customers yet. The sun peaks through the blinds.

Jake hears the sounds of metal silverware clanking and the kitchen door swiveling on its axis. He feels the gritty cloth napkin between his hands as he rolls a knife, spoon and fork into it. He smells sautéing onions and peppers wafting through the air. He hears the faint murmur of his boss speaking to associates Jake has never seen before. Jake’s hands and feet begin to tingle.

Two of Jake’s coworkers come up to him and ask if he notices the boss mad-dogging him. Jake sees a scowl on his boss’s face. He shrugs it off, priding himself on his work ethic and disinterest in drama. He finishes his task and heads to the back with the bin of napkin-rolled silverware. He feels a tight grip of a hand on his right shoulder that swivels him around. Jake drops the bin. It makes a crashing sound. Jake’s head turns slightly to the right and his eyes blink several times as he’s talking.

Jake sees his boss’s white male hand on his Black shoulder. His boss yells, “What are you staring at, Boy? Do your f@#$ing job!” Jake freezes. He feels dizzy in his head and his stomach drops like he’s on an elevator. He’s confused. His boss was staring at him, not the other way around. He was doing his job well and his colleagues were the ones slacking off. Why is he being yelled at?

His jaw and fists clench and his legs get really tense. A wave of rage pulses through his body. He cannot fight his boss without going to jail or worse. He reflexively shrugs his shoulder away from the grip and says, “Get off of me.”

Jake turns and sees his two white colleagues standing there, mouths agape. They do nothing. They say nothing. Jake feels a wave of shame and humiliation. He can’t run or hide. He’s trapped. Everyone is watching him. No one is helping him. His eyes well with tears. I reflect: “no one has your back.” Tears trickle from Jake’s eyes. The boss yells, “you’re fired!” Jake grabs his things and leaves.

I see that Jake is having a hard time looking at me. I ask him to stay with me as much as he can tolerate in his eyes while he stays present and tracking his sensation, even though it’s really hard to do right now. He looks at me. He sees me witnessing him. He burst into tears.

Jake’s voice is louder now and his chest puffs up. He says, “I got a family to provide for. I help my mom when I can. I was the first one to volunteer for double shifts, working 16-hour days, 70 hours a week, when they needed extra help when someone quit unexpectedly or during holiday rushes. And they still promoted other people over me and paid me such crap I was barely scraping by. And this is how they do me?” I validate his feelings: “you couldn’t win. No matter what you did or how hard you worked, you still got treated like you were suspect. I’m so angry that happened to you.”

Jake says he’s pissed off. By the very nature of oppression, he cannot solve racism by his own actions. He can’t run, flee or hide from oppression. But his nervous system needs to win the fight to digest the trauma in his body. So, we move toward fantasy solutions that allow him and others to stay safe in real life, but allow his mind to win this event.

The next day, Jake feels panicky (a good sign his body is digesting the trauma). His body aches and he feels like a raw nerve, like he’s hung over. He is irritated, angry and tender.

But, he has been practicing resourcing—any activity that soothes without harm—before we ever moved toward trauma processing. He’s had to resource a lot today and this week. However, as he gets to the other side of panic without using something harmful to get back to numb, he notices a lessening of burden and a greater sense of self-worth. He is in his body for the first time in a long time. He gets up and wants to exercise and cook, both passions he hadn’t felt connected to in a while. He breathes deep and takes the first step toward owning his own business and serving his community. He’s not taking crap from a boss again.

If you think you or someone you know would benefit from this type of work, check out taratoppertherapies.com and schedule your free 15-minute consult.