Understanding the Unique Nature of Trauma

If you’ve lived through trauma, then you know that it can impact every aspect of your life, from your mind, body, and spirit to your relationships and everyday life.

Unfortunately, trauma from the past doesn’t stay there. It can follow you and show up in insidious and persistent ways throughout your life. Sometimes it can stem from a single event like a car accident or a natural disaster. Other times, it is the result of an ongoing or repeated traumatic situation such as chronic neglect or abuse. While the events that spark the trauma may be in the rearview mirror, the effects of it can play out in the present.

What is trauma?

Trauma is a blanket term that we use as a society for a multitude of experiences. The definition is broad and sometimes ambiguous, which makes it even more mysterious to understand and even harder to communicate.

A simplified definition of trauma is that it is a deeply disturbing event or series of events that overwhelm a person’s ability to cope, often leaving lasting emotional, psychological, and even physical effects. But that simplified version doesn’t speak to the many more subtle aspects of the trauma, nor about how you respond to that event.

Trauma comes from a multitude of sources, such as abuse, living through the death of a loved one, being bullied, and living in an actual war zone. The odd thing about trauma is that not only does it stem from a variety of sources, but its effects also look different for everyone.

What might be traumatic for one person might not be for someone else. So, even though you have a strong reaction and anxiety over an event in your life, those around you, even those who may have had the same experience as you, may not process or react the same way you have. Your trauma is your trauma alone, and those intense feelings and adverse effects you feel don’t always make sense to the people in your life.

Measuring Trauma

Humans like to compare things to other things, just to find context. We might measure things in the physical world, like height in comparison to another person or a skyscraper. But trauma doesn’t quite work that way. The trauma you’re going through can’t be measured since you don’t have anyone else’s experience to compare it to.

The good news is that trauma doesn’t need to be measured to be validated, at least not in the way you think. Your trauma is your own, and you don’t have to compare it to anyone else’s pain or to justify it. It’s real to you, and that’s all that matters.

Maybe you’ve lived through a horrific car accident and can’t imagine ever slipping behind the driver’s seat again. But you see your friend who also lived through a similar event driving themselves to work every morning. It might make you wonder, “Why can’t I do that too?” Healing from a trauma response isn’t a race that can be measured any more than the event itself.

The only time it’s useful to “measure trauma” is when you want to communicate its impact to a therapist, doctor, or trusted friend. In those cases, you don’t have to compare your experience to someone else’s but recognize how deeply it is affecting your life. Are you struggling to sleep or avoiding certain places? Are you feeling anxious or numb? These types of self-checks don’t measure how bad your trauma was, but they show how affected you might be because of it.

Trauma is personal

Trauma is something that lives inside of you and is not only stored in your memories, but lurks in your body, is evident in your habits, and plays out in your reactions. Trauma is deeply personal and is a culmination of not only what has happened to you, but may also be related to your experiences before the event, which dictated your ability to deal with the trauma. It is also related to the support (or lack thereof) you received while dealing with the tragic events.

You are the one who lived through and felt the trauma, and your response makes sense in the context of your life story, even if no one else understands it. We all have different tools, different scars, and different levels of support when we go through traumatic events.

You may process traumatic events in a way that reflects your wiring, your nervous system, and your own life experiences, not your sisters, friends, or the guy down the street. Just because someone else appears to be doing okay living with their tragedy, doesn’t mean you have to match their timeline.

Trigger Warnings

Trauma can also be seen in the triggers you now carry that remind you of what you’ve been through. They can bring back sudden waves of fear, anger, or sadness. Oddly, sometimes these triggers don’t even seem connected to the original event. This happens when your trauma rewires your brain and nervous system in a way that prioritizes survival.

Your body, in an effort to protect you, heightens anxiety and kicks into hyper-vigilance whenever it suspects danger. While that type of response can help in situations of real threat, it can also cause you to react with an overwhelming sense of caution to things that only vaguely resemble what you went through.

Learning to recognize your triggers is an important step toward dissecting your trauma response and moving toward healing. When you start to understand what sets off those strong emotional responses, you can begin to respond to yourself with compassion instead of shame.

Instead of wondering why you can’t get over your trauma, reframe your thinking to ask yourself what it is that your body is trying to protect you from. This shift in thought may seem subtle, but it is a good first step in teaching your nervous system that not all “triggers” are dangerous.

God cares

Just because people don’t understand what you’re going through doesn’t mean that your feelings and your reactions aren’t valid. God made us to be unique, wonderful, and complex people. Combined with our intelligence, compassion, and curiosity that make us uniquely human, are the responses to the adverse things in our lives.

Our fears, reactions, and emotional responses are shaped by our biology and personal histories. For example, someone who grew up watching a loved one suffer through illness might feel anxious at the thought of a medical diagnosis, while someone without that experience might not think twice about going to the doctor.

God sees every tear you cry and every time you shudder from a trigger. He knows your thoughts, He knows your past, and thankfully, He also knows your future. He wants that future to be beautiful and for you to live an abundant life, free from the trauma of the past. God sees the wounds that no one else notices, and He’s offering to walk there right beside you and to hold your hand as you work toward healing.

Therapy in Vancouver, Washington

Christian therapy in Vancouver, Washington, is one way that God can move you from triggered to free. If you have gone through traumatic events, talking about them can be extremely difficult and can leave you feeling vulnerable. In therapy, you can divulge all those secrets, shames, and sensitivities to a skilled and compassionate advocate.

Stuffing emotions and hiding trauma rarely makes it go away. In fact, trauma responses tend to grow, mutate, and expand as they are stymied. But through therapy, you can untangle the ties that bind you to the weight of the past and learn how to move forward, untethered and untriggered.

To begin your journey to healing with the help of a Christian therapist in Vancouver, Washington, contact our office today. Take the first step toward reducing triggers and becoming free of the consequences of your traumatic experience.