Hidden Effects of Trauma: Identifying and Healing
Avoiding thoughts, emotions or situations is a common trauma effect that can be healed.
When people think about trauma affecting mental/emotional health, they often only think of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and combat trauma or Hollywood's portrayal of trauma. Most people believe PTSD must involve flashbacks. But trauma can adversely affect our lives, even if it's not Hollywood's trauma and even if it doesn't entirely meet PTSD criteria. Post-traumatic stress is a consequence of exposure to extreme traumatic experiences such as motor vehicle accidents, tornados, assault, robbery, rape, combat, torture, death of a spouse/family member, any sudden, violent disruption, or even a life-threatening illness like cancer or COVID-19. It can be from situations that threaten the integrity of the person, including reoccurring and extreme emotional abuse, especially if it's woven with any form of physical abuse. Trauma may happen to the person or be indirectly experienced. Traumatic experiences can profoundly affect us, even if it doesn't meet the criteria for PTSD. These effects do not have to be permanent with the help of an evidence-based therapist. The oversimplified course of treatment sometimes is practicing relaxation/mindfulness skills that lower the emotional intensity. These skills need to be well-practiced before moving on. The next oversimplified phase involves reprocessing the traumatic experiences while weaving the relaxation skills to lower the stress response to the trauma story or restructuring the effects of trauma. Whether relaxation skills are incorporated or not, it's a gradual desensitization process, which is integral for all effective types of treatment for trauma effects. Often it is helpful to scan for and restructure any unhelpful thinking/meaning that may have been intentionally or unintentionally carried out during the challenging experiences.
Delayed PTSD is when there was a traumatic life experience. For many reasons, the experience does not adversely affect the person until later in life when life gets stressful. For example, from work or other "adulting" responsibilities, the Pandemic, hardships, or another traumatic event occurs, or you experience a lot of intensely indirect trauma, like helping others with traumatic events. Think of the first traumatic experience as a nail (traumatic effects) that starts to go into the plank of wood (the person). The first pressure may not send the nail through the plank. Still, the following instances will undoubtedly send it deeper, affecting the person more profoundly, leading to more PTSD-like symptoms. The aspects of delayed trauma effects may profoundly affect our life, even if we don't fully meet the full criteria for PTSD.
Some PTSD symptoms or effects of trauma:
Anxiety (including panic attacks)
Sleep Disturbances
Flashbacks
Intense fear
Helplessness
Recurrent and intrusive recollections
Difficulty falling or staying asleep
Diminished interest in activities
Feeling of detachment
Restricted range of emotions
Irritability or outbursts of anger
Difficulty concentrating
Hypervigilance (perceiving things to be worse than they are)
Exaggerated startle response (being easily startled)
Significant distress or impairment in social & occupational
Avoidance (keeping self-preoccupied) or Denial
Sense of foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span)
Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma)
Physiological arousal
Physical symptoms such as shakiness
Restlessness
Fatigue
Heart Palpitation
Breathing difficulty
Stomach and bowel disturbances
Physical symptoms such as shakiness
Restlessness
Fatigue
Heart Palpitation
Breathing difficulty
Stomach and bowel disturbances
Emotional reasoning
Notice how these symptoms are all a fight/flight/freeze (retreat) response physically, mentally, or emotionally. Also, notice how the physical symptoms can lead to physical conditions like hypertension and heart problems.
Every person is capable of healing from these effects. Avoiding dealing with these issues, becoming a workaholic, intense drug/alcohol, toxic work, family or relationship environments, and personality disorders can make the healing process more complicated. Therefore, it's crucial to have an adequately trained therapist and experienced at being effective in those particular areas. Suppose you suspect that you have a neurological atypicality (i.e., high-functioning adult autism or ADHD) or even a personality disorder. In that case, it can be beneficial to get a complete psychodiagnostic evaluation, so you can be crystal clear that you are getting the appropriate treatment from the beginning.
Many people who have experienced something as traumatic may spend most of their leisure time drinking or watching tv/videos, playing video games, reading books, or working intentionally or unintentionally. This allows the person to avoid emotions and thoughts that would occur if they were not pre-occupying themselves. But does not allow them to dissolve the traumatic effect it has on their life. Effective therapy guides you to know how to process thoughts and emotions productively (without devastation or overwhelming emotions).
Avoiding, suppressing, and numbing the emotions may be helpful temporarily to allow yourself to meet your primary needs (i.e., eat, go to work, take care of the kids), but that is a survival mode, which is no way to live a life comfortably. In survival mode, you will likely perceive other aspects of your life (personal relationships, career/work stability, your likeability, and much more) through the increased survival/existential lens. When we numb, suppress or avoid emotions, the root cause is allowed to fester inside us. Also, we, in return, end up suppressing many pleasant emotions. The more that we avoid, the bigger the triggers within ourselves get, and paradoxically we experience more of what we are trying to avoid. Any of this can easily give rise to anxiety or depression.
The VA's gold standard of treatment is Written Exposure Therapy, which I can provide. It consists of only five sessions of trauma processing and no homework. Evidence-based research is shows that it is as effective as the former lead trauma therapies.
One last note, emotional validation is a balance that acknowledges what had occurred and what you did experience while not making yourself the victim for life. Assistance with all of this is what a therapist can provide. And no, you don't have to be "crazy" to benefit from seeing a therapist.
-Kelcy Eckels MA, LPC
