Trauma

A traumatic event is a highly distressing event that leaves us feeling powerless. We experience trauma when an event:

  • Was unexpected
  • Overwhelmed our abilities to cope
  • We had no choice
  • There was nothing we could do to stop it from happening
  • We struggle to integrate or make sense of the experience
  • Leads to feelings of powerlessness, helplessness, a diminished sense of self and a limited range of feelings.

Put simply, traumatic events are not chosen and they threaten our sense of survival. Our main goal is to stay alive and feel safe. So, when a trauma occurs we feel fundamentally unsafe.

There are several types of trauma but let me simply distinguish between two common types of trauma that bring people into counselling.

The first is a shock trauma. These are intense and acute experiences that involve too much, too fast, too soon – too much to make sense of it, too fast to stop it from happening and too soon if it happens when you are too young to comprehend. Shock traumas can include experiencing or witnessing a:

  • physical assault
  • rape
  • suicide
  • drug overdose
  • acts of war
  • near drowning
  • natural disaster
  • invasive medical procedure
  • car crash
  • domestic violence

The second is relational trauma, which is often ongoing abuse or neglect or inadequate care that slowly erodes your sense of being safe. While relational trauma can occur in adulthood, children are far more susceptible to the impacts due to their dependency on the adults who are supposed to care for them.

Relational trauma can take many forms but it can include:

  • emotional abuse
  • physical abuse
  • sexual abuse
  • neglect
  • attachment disruptions
  • extreme poverty
  • witnessing violence or abuse
  • abandonment
  • emotional abandonment or enmeshment

Whether it is a shock trauma or relational trauma, both can lead to struggles with stress, interpersonal relationships, substance abuse, sleep and appetite and focus.

We do not choose traumatic experiences nor do we choose our reactions to them.

Many times we can experience a traumatic event and recover from it quite quickly. Other times we may experience acute difficulties in our emotions, our sleep and eating, our social interactions and our memories of the event. This is called acute stress disorder. Again, many times we recover naturally from acute stress disorder within about a month.

However, when the symptoms last beyond a month and seriously interfere with our quality of life and our ability to function we may develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

We do not choose traumatic experiences nor do we choose our reactions to them. But we can choose to treat our symptoms.

PTSD is treatable.

PTSD symptoms are grouped into the following four clusters: intrusive memories, hyper vigilance, avoidance and negative thoughts and emotions. Let’s break it down a little bit.

Sometimes after a traumatic event, memories of the event flood into our minds unexpectedly in the form of flashbacks or nightmares. At times it can feel as if the event is happening again and we can feel very much as if we are re-experiencing it. These are called intrusive memories. We can feel like we have very little control over ourselves.

It is little wonder, then, that after a trauma, we put all of our resources into safety and survival and there is little left over for joy, pleasure, sexuality, curiosity, laughter and relationships.

At the same time our minds and bodies want to do everything possible to keep us away from anything similar to the traumatic event. Our minds and bodies can go into a state of high alert called hyper vigilance.

From this heightened state, our mind is constantly scanning for threat and risk and danger. Because our body and mind want to protect us and are in high alert, they associate all sorts of sensory information with a sense of danger. These are called triggers. Some of these associations will be accurate. For example, if we were mugged at gunpoint on a rainy night, it is accurate to associate guns with danger. But it may not be accurate to associate rainy nights with danger.

This can lead us to start avoiding any situations, people, memories or emotions that remind us of the traumatic event, even when we know it is not an accurate assessment. This can lead to feelings of shame, embarrassment, self-doubt and other patterns of negative thinking.

Putting it all together – intrusions, hyper vigilance, avoidance and negative thinking – and we can very easily fall into negative moods such as irritability, depression and numbness.

I work with PTSD using Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Prolonged Exposure (PE), two highly researched and effective treatment protocols.

Shame

Shame is what keeps you from believing that you are worthy. It keeps you small. It keeps you convinced that if I really got to know you, I would reject you. It tells you that you are fundamentally flawed, broken, undeserving and unlovable.

Shame attacks your sense of self, your identity. It tells you “you are a bad person” when you do something you wish you had not done. It robs you of peace and destroys your motivation.

Email or call me if you are struggling with trauma, PTSD or shame.

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250-818-4057

colleenstevensoncounselling@gmail.com

Contact me to book a 50 minute counselling session.