When we experience trauma, it can deeply impact our daily functioning, the way we think and our behavioural patterns. “Trauma can deeply influence our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, often in ways we might not immediately recognize. Understanding common trauma responses is a pivotal step towards healing and self-awareness,” wrote Therapist Linda Meredith. “Recognising how trauma shapes our reactions helps us understand ourselves better. It’s empowering to know that our responses are normal reactions to abnormal events. Recognising your trauma responses (fight, flight, freeze, fawn) is crucial for healing,” the expert further added.
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Common reactions to trauma that we should know about:
Replaying events: When we are traumatised by something or a situation, we have the tendency to constantly keep replaying the events in our minds – each time, it feels the same traumatic, and we often get into the spiral.
Triggers: When we keep doing this, subtle things can also act as triggers for us and make us feel traumatised, and get back to the similar experience.
Numbness and dissociation: We feel distracted and dissociated from reality, and are not able to connect with the present, because we keep dwelling in the past.
Anxiety and hypervigilance: we get into the pattern of hypervigilance and anxiety all the time. We feel the heart racing and the mind being disturbed. We also get startled easily.
Cognitive issues: We keep having memory loss issues and struggle with focus and concentration.
Sudden and vivid memories: We keep having sudden vivid memories of the traumatic experience and we get into the spiral of overthinking and feeling the exact emotions that we felt in the first place.
Shame, guilt: We feel a surge of negative emotions – shame, guilt and self-blame. We often blame ourselves for feeling a certain way.
Risky behaviour: We become impulsive and get into a risky behavioural pattern. We also have difficulty in controlling our reactions when we are angry.
Avoiding things: We try to avoid things, situations and people that make us remember the trauma. We also try to self-isolate.
Distorted view of the world: We project our anger and trauma on the world and have a distorted and negative view of the world in general. We become cynical of everything and cannot look at the positive things in life.
