Am I making too big a deal of this?
The Big T small t Issue
Healing from Narcissistic Relationships
March 2026
Month Overview:
What constitutes trauma? What is abuse? Does what is happening in my life qualify? Who gets to decide that? Am I making too big a deal of what is happening?
“Am I exaggerating? Maybe what’s happening here is just relationship stuff?”
This is one of the most common questions raised by survivors of narcissistic relationships. It often connects to the distinction between “Big T” and “little t” trauma.
Big T traumas involve events that pose an acute threat to physical safety—such as combat or war, sexual assault, kidnapping, natural disasters, or plane crashes. Little t traumas, by contrast, include experiences that may not be immediately life-threatening but still erode a person’s sense of safety and stability, such as workplace harassment, emotional abuse, economic deprivation, or betrayal. While little t traumas may seem “less serious” in isolation, their chronic and cumulative nature can have a profound impact. Over time, these repeated stressors can significantly affect mental health, contributing to patterns seen not only in PTSD or C-PTSD, but across a wide range of psychological difficulties.
This month, we’re not only exploring the concept of Big T and little t trauma, but also how related issues of abuse, safety, and danger show up in narcissistic relationships. This topic is uniquely complex because narcissistic dynamics often involve multiple layers of harm. I would argue that MOST physically abusive relationships reflect a narcissistic/antagonistic personality on the part of the perpetrator. However, MOST narcissistic relationships are not physically abusive.
Many narcissistic individuals are perceived very differently depending on who is interacting with them and in what context. But the question of how much trauma or abuse is “enough” to justify using those words often undermines survivors, leaving them doubting their own experiences: Maybe my situation isn’t that bad. Nobody is hitting me, so why am I talking about safety? This is a bit of a myth-busting month, and raises a bigger conversation about who gets to annex language and who gets to be the barometer of safety in another person’s life.