Mailbag: Trauma & Type, Subtypes, Wings, and How We Grieve

This is from Emily Nelson.

She says, I think I broke my type.

That's like when someone says, I think I broke the internet.

Okay, Emily starts with a primer here.

Is it possible to repress your type? She writes, I was a quintessential seven in high school and college.

I was so fun, future looking, adventure having, finding silver linings to deal with pain.

Then trauma hit me between the eyes.

A gentleman left me for another woman.

He said he knew he didn't love me because he had that love for her.

No silver lining could be found and my sevenness cooled way down.

I know it's still in there, but it feels like the tools that I once used to enjoy and embrace life were smashed.

Wow, this is tough.

She writes, I look a lot like a six now.

Can you speak to trauma that happens in adulthood and how it might disturb our number? I don't feel like I moved to an unhealthy seven.

I feel like I completely set seven aside to try on other numbers like three and six.

Is that possible? Any suggestions for getting back to a healthy seven?

Well, first, Emily, I'm sorry for your troubles, as they say in Ireland.

Trauma is a very complicated subject with the Enneagram, but I'm not even sure.

I mean, I think this is what might be called a microtrauma.

And meaning, I think she, it sounds to me, Emily, like you're having a normal reactive depression as a result of a significant loss.

And when we, regardless of type, experience life events that are psychologically depleting, it doesn't mean that our number changes.

It means that we do what everybody does in that situation is we... oftentimes have reactive depressions.

We lose our appetite.

We have trouble sleeping.

We lose or gain weight.