Trauma can deeply effect the way you experience yourself and your relationships for an entire lifetime. This is why it is extremely important to seek out help if you feel you have been traumatized. There is real biological evidence of trauma in the brain, where chemicals are adaptively released (ephinidrine). In post traumatic stress disorder, these chemicals are believed to be coded in the memory of the trauma. Sometimes as the trauma is revisited, one can suddenly be right back in the middle of some terrifying experience.
If something traumatic has happened to you, it can become an emotional
experience that can be persistently distracting. Perhaps in an attempt
to master your experience, you may find yourself reliving your trauma
in your relationships.
Being traumatized is like having the wind knocked out of you over and
over again. Imagine the experience of that moment of impact, and then
magnify it. The traumatized person inherently goes through the
experience of regression, as the mind and body struggles to absorb and
function in spite of the violation. Often the traumatized person will
remain silent for many reasons, including shame and fear. The task of
the therapist is to help the traumatized individual to reintegrate the
experience through language, so that it can be properly processed.
In the face of trauma the meanings you attribute to life can be
stripped away. One who has been traumatized often loses the ability to
find symbolic meaning in life. It's as though it is safer to to find
no meaning than to actually face the overwhelming feelings of terror
associated with trauma. From a mystical perspective, the traumatized
individual may be more glued to the "real" than most of us. The
implication is that mystics experience what is, letting go of any
possible subjective meanings that we as humans place on the events in
our lives. The traumatized individual often experiences a similar
undifferentiated state of mind. The difference between one who has
been traumatized and a mystic, is that the mystic gets to this place of
undifferentiation through consciousness, and the trauma victim gets
there through regression in service of protecting the self from
remembering.
Some of the symptoms of PTSD and trauma are:
- Poor historical and short-term memory
- Loss of sense of trust
- fear of intimacy
- Low self-esteem
- Panic attacks
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Flashbacks
- Dissociation (mental disconnection)
- Nightmares
- Hypervigilance
- Irritability
- Avoidance of all reminders of trauma
- Emotional numbing: A sense of detachment from relationships and the outer world
Unfortunately, many who experience the above symptoms have trouble
reaching out because their trust has been violated. The feeling of
hopelessness can be so pervasive that reaching out for help feels like
too much. It is important to know that many who have suffered from
trauma have found treatment and healing.
PTSD symptoms can lie dormant sometimes for many years after the
initial experience of trauma. Women are more likely than men to
develop PTSD. Psychotherapy and medication are often successful in the
treatment of this disorder.
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