You’re Not Broken: How Trauma Shows Up in the Body and Mind

Trauma is a fact of life. It doesn’t have to be a fact of life that means our lives are forever ruined. As we continue to learn more about how trauma impacts the body and the mind, we continue our journey of understanding how to best help people move through it. As a trauma therapist and an advocate for its research, I find that educating people on the common symptoms of trauma is a helpful starting place. Because trauma is increasingly ‘normal’ in our day-to-day lives, we want to understand how it impacts people. When we develop and strengthen our community understanding we influence how we care for each other, the thoughtfulness of our research, and policy.

What is traumatic to one person isn’t necessarily traumatic to another. Similarly, reactions and symptoms to living with the traumatic imprint can vary. Sometimes, this concerns how far the person is away (in time) from the original incident. Sometimes, it has to do with how much trauma they have experienced up until that event.

We’ve known that trauma will change the way the brain experiences and receives the world. Often the parts of the brain that process fear and emotion are over-activated and the parts of the brain that include our executive thinking skills are under-activated.

While traumatic reactions can vary, we know there are commonalities in symptoms. Aside from the nature of the event itself, which is often “out of the ordinary” with trauma [note: but doesn’t have to be], the number of symptoms can be incredibly disorienting and distressing. I can’t sleep. I can’t concentrate. I’m angry. I’m on edge. It’s often helpful for people to begin to understand that their symptoms are connected to the trauma itself. This helps with the common problem of internalization and “There’s something really wrong with me.” Trauma symptoms are a normal response to an overwhelming event. Here are some common trauma responses.

·      Nightmares

Nightmares are common with trauma symptoms. This is thought to be because the brain is still trying to process and make sense of an event that, in many cases, inherently makes no sense or shouldn’t have happened. The essence of trauma is thought to be about a nervous system that is still trying to run off the stress of the event. While the nightmares don’t necessarily have to be about the exact incident, often themes emerge like danger, immobility, fear, being stuck, being lost, etc.

·      Replaying the memory

Often this feels like the brain turning the event over and over again in the mind to go over details and what happened. This is usually in an effort to understand why it happened or if there was anything we could’ve done differently. This is understandable as a coping mechanism because it helps us not feel helpless. However, it often leads to us blaming ourselves. (See further down the list).

·      Fear and anxiety

Likely one of the most common reactions to trauma, and it makes sense. It makes sense that when something scary or life-changing happens, we would feel fear and anxiety during and afterward. Often this is a sign that our nervous systems and bodies are functioning well. The nervous system is trying to protect us from ‘it’ happening again. With trauma, the nervous system gets ‘stuck’ in a mode of overestimating threats and danger which can result in us feeling anxiety and fear in response to stimuli that we “know” isn’t a threat.

·      Flashbacks

Flashbacks are an intense reliving of the original event. We feel like the event is happening all over again. They can happen in the days or weeks after the original event or not at all. They can also get cued many years later after the event has passed, whether we recognize the event as traumatic or not.

 ·      Sadness

To be expected in many ways, sadness about the event that happened to us is a part of the recovery. We can be sad the event happened, we can be sad about losses connected to the event, or the consequences of the event. Trauma often changes our understanding of the world profoundly. It is normal and expected to be sad about that. Crying activates our parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system and so sadness can actually help us to find calm and stabilization in that way.

·      Anger

We may feel angry that the event happened, we may feel angry at ourselves, and we may feel angry at the people involved in the event. All of this is normal. We might even just be angrier in general for “no particular reason.” An increase in irritability following trauma is especially common. The anger and irritability can persist for months and years after the event if not treated.

 ·      Guilt

Guilt is a common emotional experience following trauma. We can feel guilty as though we caused the issue, or we can feel guilt like we could’ve done more to help others or ourselves.

 ·      Feeling numb

Feeling numb is a survival strategy in the body. I mentioned above that our nervous system can get “stuck” in over-assessing for threats – being hypervigilant. In the same way, our nervous systems can get stuck in a freeze response or be easily cued into a freeze response because of trauma. A freeze response feels like numbness, lack of sensation, or emotion when you “know” you should be feeling something. Numbness can be especially disconcerting for people. It is a normal symptom, however, and is an example of the nervous system trying to protect us from further pain.

 ·      Trying not to think about the event

It makes sense that we would avoid reminders of the event because the nature of trauma is often so painful. Avoiding reminders, people, conversations, thoughts, emotions, can all be ways in which we avoid the trauma. While this is understandable and a very normal response, avoidance long term makes our lives smaller.

·      Difficulty trusting people

Of course, it makes sense if your trauma happened by the hands or actions of another human, you may have a hard time trusting people. Trauma can also lead us to have trouble trusting ourselves. This is especially true of developmental trauma.

·      Believing the world is dangerous

It is normal for us to believe the world is dangerous directly after a trauma. Over time, we often see people integrate their understanding of the trauma. This means we learn that the world is not safe sometimes, and other times it is. Our nervous system is able to appropriately respond to cues of safety and cues of danger. With trauma that is untreated longer term, to be chronically mistrusting of the world is common because the nervous system is stuck ‘overestimating’ danger.

·      Blaming yourself for the trauma

This is extremely common and especially difficult for many folks living with trauma. Statements like:

 “I should’ve known better.”

“Why didn’t I leave earlier?”

“I had a feeling and I didn’t listen to it.”

“I shouldn’t have been there.”

It’s easy to criticize ourselves from the vantage point of something already having happened. It’s also part of the fabric of our culture to overstate our responsibility in something. More importantly, this type of thinking helps keep us from feeling helpless about something. Think of it this way: If there is something I could’ve done differently then I can control and protect myself from it in the future. This is a symptom that changes as our understanding of the trauma and integration of it changes.

·      Seeing yourself as weak or inadequate

It is common for people who have been through something traumatic to see themselves as less than in some way. I’ve heard people describe themselves in many words that are indicative of this traumatic-related belief: stupid, disgusting, dirty, idiotic, careless, despicable. While it’s a common symptom of the lived experience, it’s important we keep reminding ourselves it is because of the trauma we feel this way not because we are actually those things.

·      Criticizing yourself for how you handled the trauma/ongoing symptoms

This is so common for people living with trauma but also amongst humans in general. It seems we criticize ourselves trying to motivate ourselves. The thing with trauma is that by definition whatever the trauma was: it was overwhelming. When we are overwhelmed, we go into survival mode. Survival mode means a different part of your brain is in the driver’s seat, and not your prefrontal cortex which usually is through the day making decisions and being rational. We quite literally go into a more primitive form of being, our more animalistic sides, to survive. We don’t get to choose how we respond when we are focused on surviving the moment.

·      Feeling on guard or defensive often

This is a commonly felt sense of people living with trauma. You may have a difficult time relaxing your body, and the more you try and ‘force’ it the tension might get worse. If this is a symptom of your experience, it’s important to remember that the body knows how to soften intrinsically and inherently. While we may not be able to relax with as much effortless ease as before, we can teach ourselves to soften in micro doses and baby steps over time. We learn, essentially, that it is safe to relax again.

·      Being easily startled

You may notice that you jump easily, become frightened more easily, or startle more easily. If a dish drops in a kitchen, or a car backfires, you may cringe, wince, or jump. This is normal and indicative of a nervous system over-estimating threats.

·      Loss of interest in sex

This is true whether the event was of a sexualized nature or not. I hope by now I’ve communicated that trauma is a physiological response, in the nervous system. When the body doesn’t feel safe, it makes sense that being vulnerable in a sexual way may be impacted.

·      Difficulty sleeping

The ability to sleep requires our body and mind to be able to soften, relax, and become vulnerable. When the body is constantly scanning for danger or threats, it’s difficult to achieve the level of relaxation needed to restore ourselves through sleeping.

If you have been struggling with symptoms of trauma, I encourage you to seek the help of a trained trauma professional. While many of these symptoms may subside over time, some may not. It is never a weakness to ask for help, and professionals spend hours and years working to understand this stuff so that we can help people just like you.

Ending on a slightly lighter note, and a mention for a future article: Not all trauma reactions are negative. Post-traumatic growth is a concept and experience that is available to us through trauma. I’ll share more on this later.

Please share this with someone that needs it, or just in general. We can all be more educated and supportive of how our bodies naturally respond to overwhelming events in our lives.

With love and deep breaths,

Cristen