Because this is the absence of a good thing, it’s often much harder to identify Type A trauma. As the sayings go, “You don’t know what you don’t know,” and, “You can’t miss what you never had.”

My deepest Type A trauma (Matthew, here) was that of abandonment. My parents were both physically present through most of my childhood, but when I was about seven years old, they both checked out of my life emotionally. They were as present as a piece of furniture to me. I so wanted to know their love. I wanted the validation of my father. I wanted, and tried so hard, to keep my family together, but it was beyond my control. I grew up, for the most part, without parents, without friends, and without the emotional support and guidance that every child should have, but I didn’t realize it for the longest time. You see, I knew that other families were different—that many of my peers had all of those things and more—but I really didn’t know anything different for myself, and so I just accepted my situation as the way of life.

“That’s life” is such a terrible and hopeless statement, but it’s all I knew. It took someone else, hearing my story, to point out to me that I was lacking some very fundamental parts of human development, and that I needed to deal with this Type A trauma in my life.

Not only is Type A usually the more difficult type of trauma to diagnose, it also takes a lot more time to heal from. Because Type A trauma is the absence of good and necessary things, the healing process requires receiving those things in a natural and healthy way. Now sometimes, we can receive these things directly from God, but most of the time, we receive them through healthy and life-giving relationships with other people. That in itself can seem threatening and hopeless to someone who has trouble forming deep relation ships (as many who have experienced this type of trauma do), but it’s absolutely necessary for you to be free.