What is Trauma and How to Deal With It
Trauma (PTSD) is an experience of overwhelming pain, physical/emotional/psychological and even spiritual intensity that feels too big for us to handle. It changes who are.
According to trauma expert Gabor Mate
“Trauma is an invisible force that shapes our lives. It shapes the way we live, the way we love and the way we make sense of the world. It is the root of our deepest wounds.”
During trauma all a person can do is do our best to survive.
There are 6 different stages of attempting to survive trauma:
- Forgetting: mentally disbelieving what is happening to them, or shutting it out of their minds.
- Stress response in the body begins with a “freeze”, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights.
- A second tree response by the body is attempting flight (getting away) or fight, (to protect or fight back).
- If the person cannot do this, their body goes into a deeper freeze where they go still and unresponsive, hoping they’ll survive by being unnoticed. With associated feelings of panic, dizziness, nausea, lightheadedness, tingling, and numbing.
- If going unnoticed isn’t possible and someone find themselves in the jaws of the lion (or whatever story our trauma has us in its grip) they’ll collapse, or ‘play dead’. This is a biological response, hoping their attacker will lose interest and leave them alone.
- Another trauma survival response that can be acted out later on in life is that of ‘fawning’. Fawning is where someone will seek the approval and cooperation of anyone they perceive as a threat, and do anything they can to get it, in order to stay safe.
As a result of this trauma, we are forever changed.
In order to survive, a person will try to cut off from this traumatised part of themselves.
They can then live in a state of high anxiety and arousal conditioned into their nervous system, induced by their unresolved trauma of wanting to flee, or to fight. Or to have breakthrough moments of dissociative symptoms which may include feeling overwhelmed, foggy, tired, shut-down, light-headed, nauseous, or numb, if their trauma created a deeper freeze/collapse response. Such re-experiencing of the past can take minutes or hours to recover from. This is known as PTSD.
This is especially true in cases of prolonged, repeated, or childhood trauma, where there were no support systems available to help the person recover, known as Complex PTSD. If the trauma occurred at a very young age, before the child had any ability to deal with it, studies have shown that the effects of trauma impact the ability of the child’s brain to develop normally.
A person who has been traumatized can often carry a generalised anxiety as a result of this disconnection from their wholeness. They feel different from who they used to be, and different, and isolated, from everyone else around them.
Or they carry anxiety from trying to avoid feeling the pain of their trauma.
PTSD and CPTSD is trauma that is invalidated or unsupported, so the person with trauma is unable heal from it.
To heal from trauma is to:
– have the need met that went unmet in the trauma.
(Having this need met immediately after the trauma – either internally or by those around them – is why some people can recover and not be long term impacted by it.)
– This allows the person to return to a place of safety, connection and wholeness in themselves.
This unmet need can be to:
– escape (literally to run away to safety)
– safely feel what was too scary to feel, to speak, to be heard and validated
– understand what was happening (especially as children)
– to be held, loved and feel safe and connected with others
– told what was their fault and what wasn’t
– be given choices (where in the trauma event there were none)
– reconnect with their inner power, creating a sense of control and empowerment
– build a healthy relationship with their own feelings and the feelings of others
– re-establish trust in themselves, others and the world.
It is never too late
With the right support someone can do this even many years after the initial traumatic event(s). For their traumatised body and mind can’t tell the difference between the present and the past, offering a window to resolution in the here and now.
Early symptoms of trauma may include some or all of the following:
vivid flashbacks (feeling like the trauma is happening right now)
intrusive full or partial thoughts or images of what happened
nightmares
intense distress at real or symbolic reminders of the trauma eg. smells,
sounds
physical sensations such as pain, sweating, nausea or trembling.
Alertness or feeling on edge, panicking when reminded of the trauma
being easily upset or angry
extreme alertness, also sometimes called hyper-vigilance
disturbed sleep or a lack of sleep
irritability or aggressive behaviour
finding it hard to concentrate – including on simple or everyday tasks
being jumpy or easily startled.
Others include:
A distrust of emotions and an inability to feel them.
Avoiding feelings by keeping busy, avoiding anything that reminds you of the
trauma, feeling emotionally numb or cut off/detached from your body, being
unable to express affection, using addictions to avoid memories or feelings.
Feeling like nowhere is truly safe, even not knowing what safety is
Feeling isolated and like no one understands
Blaming yourself incorrectly for what happened
Overwhelming feelings of anger, sadness, guilt or shame
Feelings of disempowerment and an inability to take charge in life.
Later symptoms can include difficulty with:
looking after ourselves
holding down a job
maintaining friendships or intimate relationships
remembering things and making decisions
our sex drive
coping with change
simply enjoying our leisure time and feeling the aliveness and joy in life.
Side effects of PTSD/CPTSD on our mental health can be:
– anxiety disorders, depression, dissociative disorders, self harm and suicidal feelings.
The other complexity is when the trauma happened many years ago and the person
has had a life time of trying to (often unconsciously) deal with its impact.
This can result in:
– strong dissociation from their feeling body as a protective mechanism
– a strong belief in their need to protect this protection
– a habit of negative self-judgement and criticisms
– a lack of self-worth and deservingness
– an inability to trust others and or life
– unsatisfying intimate relationships.
– a need to keep others at a distance or a constant craving for their attention.
– constant need for the approval of others to feel ok/safe
– constant feelings of anxiety, frozenness, procrastination (inability to
think/plan/follow through)
– constant anger or inability (fear of) to get angry
– disconnection from the authentic self
– sense of disconnection from the rest of the world
– a limited ability to feel happy, alive and enjoy life
– long term use of anti-depressant/anxiety/psychotic medications for
anxiety/depression that are trauma related, rather than the cause in
themselves. This is not wrong, it can be useful at times until the right support
can be found to actually deal with, rather than suppress, the trauma. Medication should be given with the view to being a short/medium term measure, as it does not address the underlying cause of the problem. Or unless trauma reduction has been found not possible due to….
– lack of the right support to deal with the backlog of emotion that can arise
when the trauma is connected with, until it can be fully integrated.
– limited ability to access creativity, as part of the expression of the aliveness of
life.
Because of the huge impact trauma and PTSD/CPTSD can have on our lives it is vital that it is properly addressed and managed.
Luckily the modern health system is slowly starting to address trauma and its many challenges.
Tools for healing:
Along with somatic based therapies, EMDR, CBT, ACT and Psychedelic Assisted
Therapy the following tools are powerful ones people can use themselves:
Exercise, dance, yoga
Meditation/breathwork (with supervision at first to deal with any triggers)
Journaling (free writing), emotional expression
Mindfulness (again with some supervision if required)
Inner Child Healing (again with supervision at first if required)
Gratitude
Being in nature; Being creative; singing; playing
Developing the social part of the nervous system
Allowing love and happiness in
c Oztantra 2024
