Trauma is painful. Trauma is defined as a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. We experience traumas throughout our lives, whether through emotional abuse or neglect, negative beliefs about ourselves imposed by others, experiencing loss, being told we aren’t good enough, or living in a chaotic home. Many traumatic events include divorce, moving, abuse, neglect, sexual assault, accidents, war, or natural disasters. It is estimated that about half of adults have experienced significant trauma.
Trauma can impact many aspects of your life and well-being. It may cause you to feel shame, anxiety, or depression. Our brains are amazingly complex and have the natural ability to heal from trauma and other stressors. When we experience trauma, our brains need time to process the event to make sense of the experience. However, if an event is beyond our ability to understand, or if the trauma repeats over time, our brains can have difficulty effectively processing the trauma. It goes into fight flight or freeze response keeping a person stuck in the moment of the traumatic or disturbing experience. These experiences can change how you see yourself and the world around you. Around 20 percent of adults have developed posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, due to trauma. It’s important to know that this disorder can impact anyone regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion, or socioeconomic status.
Posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a disorder that stems from a life-threatening event or psychological trauma. When the associated uncomfortable feelings are triggered, the trauma is experienced throughout the nervous system as if it is happening at present. PTSD may develop and cause the sufferer to feel unsafe in their current life even after the traumatic events have passed. Sometimes, however, events and memories are so distressing that the usual method in which the different areas of the brain communicate with one another becomes blocked.
PTSD can manifest as nightmares, intense flashbacks or memories of events, feelings, and actions of anger, and the inability to fall or stay asleep. Individuals with PTSD may experience numbing emotions and a loss of interest in usual activities. Additionally, many people experience depression or guilt, which can lead to avoidance of places or people that remind them of their trauma. These symptoms can become debilitating and often cause as much harm as the original trauma in an individual’s life. The effects of PTSD can continue throughout one’s life and damage one’s family, career, and social life if left untreated.
But you are not alone; at Inner Peace Therapies, we use trauma-informed care to help you process your trauma. We believe in building safety and trust to aid you in your journey to healing. We integrate different modalities to help clients recover from their trauma while gaining insight into how it impacted them and their relationships. We believe in teaching emotional regulation and distress tolerance to manage life stressors. Together, you and your therapist will decide what approach to trauma therapy is best for you, and we will provide you with an education along the way. The goal is to process the trauma and integrate safety and health beliefs about oneself.