Healing From Trauma: Understanding Trauma and the Path to Healing

Healing From Trauma: Understanding Trauma and the Path to Healing

Contributed by EMDR trained therapist at Mental Health Recovery Specialists, Grace Blumberg, LMSW.

What is Trauma?

Emotional trauma is something that many people experience at some point in their lives and can be thought of as a psychological wound, a response to distressing events or life circumstances. This trauma can arise from different sources including one-time events such as accidents, loss of a loved one, and assaults.

Trauma can also originate from prolonged stress such as from difficult life situations, bullying, emotional abuse, or world events. The echoes of a traumatic event or circumstance can impact how someone feels, behaves, and thinks in their day-to-day life, disrupting the ability to cope and function, causing emotional distress, and sometimes impacting relationships, self-esteem, and confidence.

Trauma can happen to anyone, regardless of background, socio-economic status, age, or identity – and it’s something that you don’t have to face alone.

The Path to Healing

The first step in healing is recognizing when you or a loved one is experiencing impacts from trauma. When this happens, someone’s brain is having difficulty with working through or ‘processing’ the traumatic event(s). This means that while symptoms of trauma can feel overwhelming and unhelpful, they are a normal reaction to an abnormal event. The ways that someone found to cope in the past may no longer be working and may even be causing more difficulty over time. A few signs that you or someone you love may be experiencing the effects of trauma include:

• Irritability
• People who have experienced trauma may experience outsized reactions that feel disproportionate to the current situation. This may be directly related to inner turmoil that’s caused by the traumatic event.
• Anxiety
• Individuals may find themselves on edge and constantly expecting danger, acting hypervigilant in an attempt to keep themselves safe. This heightened state of alertness can be exhausting and cause issues with sleep and strain relationships.
• Intrusive Thoughts and Memories
• After going through a traumatic event or circumstances, individuals may experience flashbacks or intrusive thoughts relating to the event or situation. This can cause the person to re-live the event in detail, feeling as though it’s happening again.
• Avoidance and Withdrawing Socially
• Some people cope by avoiding reminders of the traumatic event or circumstance, including places, activities or people that can bring back painful memories. Many will isolate themselves from others and their world as a way to avoid connection.
• Changes in Beliefs or Self-Perception
• Traumatic events and circumstances can shake a person’s sense of self-worth and alter the ways they think about the world. This can lead to feelings of hopelessness, guilt, shame, and powerlessness.
• Physical Symptoms
• Emotional trauma can begin to manifest in physical forms as well including headaches, stomach aches, chronic pain, difficulty sleeping, fatigue, and gastrointestinal issues. Linked to the body’s stress responses, these symptoms can often worsen if the trauma is unaddressed.

Experiencing trauma and its impact reverberating through your life can feel scary and destabilizing. The good news is that there are many ways to work through past traumas, reprocessing past memories and grounding yourself in the present moment. Here are a few:

• Professional Support
• Therapists trained in trauƒma informed treatment can offer support using different modalities including Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and talk therapy such as CBT or DBT. Working one-on-one with an empathic, trained professional can help with reprocessing past painful memories as well as building tools and systems of support.
• Mindfulness and Self-Care
• Practices such as mindfulness, yoga, meditation, and even simplistic ways of caring for yourself are an important part of the healing process. A therapist can help you in building these systems for yourself as you work towards healing.
• Support Systems
• A support system is an important piece of the healing process and can include a therapist, friends and family, and a broader community. Having these networks of people in your life as you heal can provide comfort, support, and encouragement.

Resources & Further Reading

• https://www.apa.org/topics/trauma
• https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score
• https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/coping-with-traumatic-events

What’s Next?

Trauma is part of life and can happen to anyone. While it can feel uncomfortable to work through painful memories, healing is possible. There are so many different supports and modalities of healing that are available to you – from one-on-one therapy to building methods of self care and grounding.

If you are looking for support related to trauma, please feel free to reach out to [email protected]. You don’t have to face it alone, there are professionals to help you in building your systems of support and work alongside you on your path to reclaiming your life.