What is Trauma? Understanding Symptoms, Causes, and Trauma Healing
What is Trauma? Trauma is a Response to Distressing Experiences.
The amount of times I have had a client sit in my office and say something like “Well, I know that what happened really isn’t that big of a deal, and that other people had it worse,” or “I bet you’ll think this is dumb that I would even care about this anymore, but…” is far too many. Because of this, I think it is so important to normalize a broad range of experiences of trauma, and recognize that people experience their trauma in many different ways. Read on to explore what trauma is, symptoms of trauma, the impact of trauma, and how to heal from it.
Trauma is not just what happens to you. It is the lasting effects of the event or events. Webster’s Dictionary defines trauma as “a serious injury to the body or a psychological state that results from severe emotional or mental stress.” While of course this is true, Somatic Experiencing and other mental health practitioners might expand the definition a little bit. We might suggest that the definition of trauma includes distress from a life-threatening event as well as the effect of cumulative stress. Often, trauma is because we have experienced something that happened too fast, too soon, or not enough for too long.
Trauma includes pointed events, such as a car accident, an assault, or a natural disaster. It also includes interpersonal stress such as abuse, neglect, and prolonged high conflict. It can affect anybody, regardless of age, rage, religion, or socioeconomic background. (Although, it is important to note that certain groups of people do experience higher rates of trauma because of the group that they belong to.)
Common Symptoms of Trauma
Emotional Symptoms of Trauma
Emotional trauma is seen in many different ways. Oftentimes, clients ask me “Is this normal?” when describing their traumatized emotional states. My response? Yes, it is common but not necessarily normal.
Trauma can cause someone to feel:
Sad
Angry
Flat
“All over the place”
Pensive
Curious
Frustrated
Powerless
Exasperated
…and so on. The range of emotions can often follow their physical state.
Physical Symptoms of Trauma
Trauma impacts the nervous system. This is what Somatic Experiencing seeks to address through guided support. Trauma is a stuck nervous system. Because the nature of trauma is that it is an experience where something didn’t get to happen (oftentimes, for example, self-protection) our bodies get “stuck.” This looks like getting perpetually stuck in patterns of fight, flight, or freeze.
Symptoms of a flight response could look like:
Being antsy
A lot of energy in the legs
Elevated heart rate
Hypervigilance about where exits are
Feeling trapped
Finally, freeze energy could look like feeling “out of it,” low energy, feeling frozen or catatonic, sleeping a lot, or being disassociated. Again, these are only examples of how it might look, and it is important to speak with a professional to help you determine what state you could be stuck in.
Symptoms of a fight response could look like:
Feeling easily heated
Noticing a lot of throat activation
Fist clenching
Elevated heart rat
Symptoms of a freeze response could look like:
Feeling “out of it”
Low energy
Feeling frozen or catatonic
Sleeping a lot
Being disassociated
These are only examples of how it might look and it is important to speak with a professional to help you determine what state you could be stuck in.
Spiritual Symptoms of Trauma
At times, when people are traumatized they can have a difficult time with how they now see life. It can drastically shape people’s existential viewpoints. Some will lose faith or find it, some will feel completely hopeless and that “life isn’t worth living,” and others will be more present because “every moment counts.” I actually find this a really beautiful spot to be in, especially when somebody is seeking therapy, because that person is giving themselves the gift of curiosity, allowing their beliefs to be malleable and explored in a safe environment.
How Trauma Effects The Brain
Intrusive Thoughts and Flashbacks
Intrusive thoughts and flashbacks are hallmark symptoms of trauma that deserve their own mention here. The brain is an interesting organ, and it seems to “fire off” at random times after traumatic experiences. Intrusive thoughts and flashbacks are the traumatized mind’s way of remembering what happened.
Often, these memories are fragmented or even disorganized. This is why, for example, if you look at the data on how accurate people are at identifying a perpetrator by photo, the rate isn’t as good as you think it would be. This isn’t to say that it is always to not be trusted, but that it explains why victims can often report different details or retell it in different ways. The brain doesn’t remember it in an organized fashion.
People have intrusive thoughts and flashbacks when they are triggered. (That is not to say that it can’t come out of nowhere.) Sights, sounds, smells, and other stimuli in the environment can bring on these symptoms, which can create other symptoms of trauma such as anxiety, chronic fear, or even agoraphobia. In a strange way, this is the nervous system’s really intelligent way of protecting itself. Sometimes, however, it is misguided. For example, if you burned yourself on a stove, it would make sense that you would be hesitant to be around a stove again. But trauma generalizes – it would create a fear of all things hot, which isn’t necessarily self-protection anymore.
Avoidance and Emotional Numbing
Our nervous systems are extremely intelligent, and as an effect of trauma, they help to reduce the amount of stress felt in the system by taking some of it away. At first, this is a relief to not be in constant distress, but over time emotional avoidance and numbing cause more problems than they help.
At first, avoidance and/or numbing can be quite unconscious, meaning that the person experiencing the symptom is not purposefully trying to do it. This typically looks like having a “flat affect;” or not displaying a broad range of emotions as typical. Another way this can show up for people is disassociation, or the disconnection from the present. This can present as scrolling endlessly, watching a lot of TV, or seeming “out of it.” Somatic Experiencing greatly helps with healing from trauma because it helps the person to find safe ways to come out of disconnected states in order to be fully present.
Unfortunately, sometimes this emotional avoidance and numbing can be a conscious choice. If the symptoms of trauma are too intense (think about some of the things we talked about above, like flashbacks, hypervigilance, intense somatic responses) people will oftentimes try to find a way out of it. This is why there is such a high comorbidity of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and substance use. Substances help to take the person out of the pain and into a different state. This is why getting effective treatment is so important. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Somatic Experiencing are both treatments that can help you heal from trauma.
Changes in Relationships
Because carrying the weight of trauma impacts a person so deeply and requires so much energy, connecting with others is important. To understand more about why being stuck in fight, flight, or freeze makes it really difficult to connect to others, read “5 Key Insights into Somatic Experiencing Therapy”.
Ultimately, connection is what heals us. Therefore, being able to process and heal from your trauma with effective treatment is essential. The therapeutic relationship can also be used to heal, especially for those who have had developmental trauma or any other form of interpersonal trauma. Especially if the nature of the trauma happened from another person, building trust with anybody takes time, which is why it is essential to find a provider that you can trust or at least be as open as possible with them.
Finding Support For Your Trauma
Please contact me if you have any questions about whether or not Somatic Experiencing or EMDR would be appropriate for you, or if you want to get to understand more about how I work. I am happy to help in any way possible. I believe healing is possible for anybody! Given the space, support, and safety, all systems are wired for healing.
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Stevie Spiegel is a Licensed Therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner located in Kansas City. She uses Somatic Experiencing as her main body-based trauma healing modality, as well as EMDR. As an Intuitive Eating Counselor, she uses these principles to help her clients challenge their relationship with their cultural misconceptions about their body and food. Learn More >
