Healing Painful Life Events

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Traumatic Stress is caused by experiencing any event that overwhelms an individual’s psycho-somatic system.  The range of events vary from mild everyday encounters to life threatening incidents.
In a nutshell, the physical body and the emotional mind are “stressed out”.  Essentially, if there is an event(s) that interferes with the person’s ability to process what is happening/being experienced OR subjectively speaking,
if the person experiences a threat to life, body integrity or sanity the mind and body have a harder time processing.

Trauma Can Occur Through:

A Single Event  |  Chronic Traumatic Invalidation  |  Multiple Events that Occured  |  A Single Event That Occurred During Childhood  |  Chronic Events That Occurred During Childhood

Or it can occur through painful events such as:

• Car Accident
• Accident where other(s) life/lives are in danger
• Dangerous Situations Where you Fear Your Own or Someone Else’s Life:
  • Mugging, Threats, Harassment, Pandemic, Natural Disasters, Etc.
• Abuse and/or Witnessing Abuse:
  • Physical, Sexual, Emotional or Economic
• Combat Experiences
• Terrorism
• Torture
• Vicarious Trauma
• Captivity
• Raised by Parent with Substance Abuse
• Chaotic Environment
• Raised by Parent with Serious and/or Disabling Mental      Illness
• Aversive Childhood Experiences (ACE’s)
• Abandonment and/or Death of a Parent/Loved One
• Medical/Surgical
• Trans-Generational
• Medical Diagnosis
• Mental Diagnosis

What is the Impact of These Traumas?

There is not a simple way to answer this question.  No person is impermeable to traumatic events.  At times, social support can help lessen effects of traumatic experiences and yet,
there are common experiences when it comes to experiencing a traumatic event:

• Fear and Anxiety
• Re-Experiencing Trauma with Unwanted Thoughts, Flashbacks and/or Nightmares
• Increased Arousal: Jumpy, Jittery, Shaky, Easily Startled, Trouble Concentrating, Difficulties Sleeping, Impatience, Irritability
• Avoidant of Anything that Prompts Memories of the Trauma(s)
  • Avoidance of Emotions and Numbness
• Anger and irritability
• Overwhelming Guilt/Shame and/or Self Hate
• Grief and Depression
• Self-Image or View Towards the World Shifts to Being ‘Negative’ or ‘Dangerous’ Views
• Intimacy with Others Becomes Difficult
• increasing Reliance or Use of Substances
  • Alcohol, Marijuana, Other Illicit Drugs
• Impulsivity
• Life Threatening Behaviors and Ideations:
  • Suicidality, Self-Harm, Reckless Driving, Shoplifting, Stopping important Medications
• Dissociation and Other ‘Spaced Out’ Experiences
• Feeling Detached From Your Body
• Experience your Life as if You’re Watching a Movie, Feeling Lost in Your Own Life, Etc.
• Disordered Eating and Other Manifestations of a Need for Control and/or Inflexibility in Thinking
• Feeling Stuck
• Foreshortened Future
• Hopelessness
• Hypervigilance
• Panic Attacks
• Constantly Bracing or Feeling Uneasy

Why are Childhood Events Listed out Separately?​

Traumatic events that occur in childhood impact the brain in both similar and different ways.  While trauma overwhelms both an adult and adolescent/infant nervous system, for the young nervous system it also can struggle with primary regulation via developing brain, body and core sense of self.  Dr. Sebern Fisher defines Developmental Trauma as “attachment rupture, poverty, neglect, the absence of empathy, and emotion and sensory dysregulation”.

To summarize, the developing brain and nervous system can become “stuck on”.  As we know, when the brain is hyper or hypo aroused, the brain has a difficult time processing incoming information. 

Thus, problems with sensory integration, emotion regulation (emotion dysregulation is prevalent and diagnoses might include ODD, BPD, etc.), empathic failure for others and development of self are limited.

When we keep in mind how the brain develops (it is built from the bottom up) it makes sense why our regulatory systems are impacted the most especially with the frontal lobes developing last (not fully developed until early 20’s).   Thus cognitive processing of traumatic events is critically impacted while and adolescent.  

Essentially the foundation of development in all its facets is impacted.

After Trauma, the World is Experienced with a Different Nervous System

The brain is wired for survival as shown in the Limbic System.

The traumatized brain is often compared to a smoke detector constantly ringing as the brain often misinterprets cues.  For example, a Combat Veteran may drop to the ground when he hears a car backfire; a College Student freezes because a friend touched her shoulder from behind; an Employee feels degraded or humiliated during a performance review.  Essentially, for those with trauma memories, the triggers aren’t always clear memories but experienced as a host of physiological experiences (fights-flight-freeze, “body memory” and/or danger thoughts).