For someone who isn’t trying to cope with a traumatic event in his or her past, it’s normal to spend a fair amount of time being “on guard” and ready to defend. In fact, this is the case for all mammals, and in most cases, human beings aren’t much different. However, there comes a time when everyone has to relax and, in a sense, stop and smell the roses. Otherwise, we would never form personal relationships with each other. We would never be able to raise our children in emotionally stable homes, and we would never be able to have a good time with our friends.
When you suffer from a trauma, your response to ordinary stimuli is probably either to remain in defense mode for a majority of the time or to become numb in the face of new experiences or those that trigger traumatic responses. You might have difficulty with understanding when you’re in a truly dangerous situation as well.
In his book, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk talks about how it is normal for women who have suffered from rape when they were younger to experience rape again in adulthood. It’s also common for women to become victims of domestic violence if they witnessed that in their homes while they were growing up. The statistics are very clear that trauma tends to repeat itself, and when we take a moment to understand why this is the case, it’s easy to see.
Healing from Trauma
For trauma victims, anything they might normally take for granted becomes a challenge much of the time. It might be difficult for them to relax enough to enjoy an intimate relationship with someone they care about because that requires them to surrender physically, mentally and emotionally. That’s difficult and sometimes even impossible for a short period of time.
There is a very simple reason for this, and it’s because traumatized people don’t have the ability to recognize when they’re in a safe situation. In order to see some type of change in their response, they have to have experiences that can help them to bring back that ability.
Studies have shown that while this is difficult, it is possible to illicit a positive social response, and those social responses are often the key to getting traumatized people to surrender their defenses or lack of emotional response.
Trauma therapy can help you by awakening those emotional responses in your mind and in your body. Remember, your entire body is responsible for the way you react to triggers that cause you to recall those traumatic events in your life. It isn’t just your mind that is at work.
I can help you begin to heal from your personal trauma. Please contact me to make an appointment.
