Don’t Have any Hobbies? Betrayal Trauma May Be to Blame
Hobbies, by which I mean anything that you do regularly for pleasure that is both meaningful and enjoyable, are important ingredients to the joy of life. When you realize as an adult that you don’t have any hobbies, it signals that you are missing out, and it may mean that a past betrayal that you thought was settled needs a bit more attention.
A couple of weeks ago I had a call with a woman who had grown up with a dad who cheated, and then asked her as a young teen to keep his secret from her mom. (Interested in scheduling a call with me to talk about your experience? Get in touch here.) We talked about the fallout from that experience, including that she realized as an adult that she did not have any hobbies, and was actively working to change that.
Which struck a cord in me, because while my parent infidelity experience was different from hers, I also arrived in young adulthood with nothing in the way of hobbies or interests outside of work and the tasks of daily life. While I believe that all trauma can contribute to a lack of hobbies, based on my own experience and those of the hundreds of people I have heard from, I think parent infidelity can lead to disinterest in hobbies for two reasons: cultural values around rest and the stress of keeping secrets.
REST
In the US, we struggle with valuing activities, like hobbies, that are not immediately productive. Hobbies like running are given more cultural value by a smart watch, which tracks steps or heart rate or mileage towards a goal of being faster, healthier, tougher. Not that there is anything wrong with having a goal for one of our hobbies., indeed, it can increase the amount of joy that you get out of it. Think about how learning to knit an entire sweater for your daughter might amp up your love of knitting as compared to simply piddling around making crooked hats.
However, there is also value in doing something enjoyable just because it is enjoyable. In that moment, the way that it makes your body relax or your mind fizz or your heart stir. Hobbies can do that too, without any tracking devices or endgames, and it does not make a hobby any less precious. Because pleasure is its own endgame, right?
This difficulty valuing joy is, I believe, wrapped up in our collective conflict with rest. Resting too much (whatever that means), including doing something that is solely for the purpose of pleasure, is seen as unproductive, lazy and wasteful. It can set off all of the fight or flight centers in our brains that tell us that if we don’t keep going, we will not earn enough, have enough, do enough, and our entire world will collapse.
Here is where childhood betrayal trauma comes in. If you are already wired for fight or flight based on your history, then any activity that culturally fires up a fight or flight response (even in generally healthy people) is going to double down on you. Resting isn’t just going to feel uncomfortable, it’s going to feel dangerous.
ADD IN THE IMPACT OF SECRETS
Now layer on top of that having to keep a secret about your dad’s affair, like the woman I spoke with last month. As I have written about here, having to keep a secret seriously stresses your brain. It creates a sense of hyper vigilance that is tough to shake, even once the secret comes out. On top of that, most adult children who grow up with a cheating parent will tell you that there is no forum to share what they went through. There is no way to mourn what might have been super difficult because it is not considered to be problem in the first place.
So, you stuff the secret down first, and then you stuff down the need to mourn the secret, and all of a sudden, you realize that you can’t just stuff down these parts of you in isolation. All of you starts to go down the chute. (I love this article for how it describes one woman’s experience discovering how she had hidden her creativity along with her trauma)
So finding a hobby, reclaiming a point of pleasure in your life, means that in order to know what you enjoy, you have to know all of yourself. Including those bits that are locked away. Sometimes in order to find your pleasure, you have to mourn your pain. Which just totally sucks.
So what do you do?
I don’t recommend opening up that place where everything has been locked down without some serious support, either from a therapist or close friend. I do believe that you can take turtle steps toward developing a hobby that might help you release some of the pain slowly, while also building more pleasure into your life.
Rest more. In as small slices, as you feel safe. When I started, it was literally until I could count to 44. That was all I could manage. Educate yourself in the ways that American culture does not value rest, which will help you feel less alone. A good place to start is The Nap Ministry.
Start with a low stakes hobby. What do I mean by low stakes? Two of my hobbies, gardening and coloring, exist at opposite ends of the continuum. Gardening asks that I spend a couple of hours a week, grow things, and risk killing things. Coloring I can do once per week on a Sunday afternoon, and occasionally send what I color to my daughter at college. If I feel like it. Both are hobbies. Both bring me great joy and relaxation. But when you are just starting out, reduce the friction as much as possible by taking on something flexible, inexpensive and easy.
Set a small but consistent goal. I like to say hat I live my life in 20 minute increments, because that feels like a manageable amount of time for most anything and it doesn’t fire up my defense responses. But choose a time that works for you. Read for 5 minutes. Choose a 6 minute video that teaches you a few notes on the piano. The idea is to expand your comfort zone slowly so that it is not jarring for you.
Simply prioritizing your own personal happiness will signal to your heart that you are ready for a more joyful life, which is a great step towards coping with betrayal trauma. If you are looking for some more help, get in touch.