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Abuse, Abuse & Neglect, Coping Behaviors, Overcoming, Pain, Trauma, Uncategorized

FEELINGS AND THE VIRUS

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I just came back from a walk on my favorite lake, Lake Michigan. Yesterday it was a beautiful day and totally blue skies. The Lake was gorgeous and light blue. Today when I went, it was another gorgeous day with blue skies, BUT the lake was dark and seemed angry. How does it change like that? It should have been blue like yesterday! Maybe our earth is feeling the effects of the virus too? I don’t know I just know when the skies are blue, so is the lake and it wasn’t. This is like our life right now, it is Spring gorgeous and we in the darkness of this virus.

We are all feeling the effects of the virus – still in the house, battling on the front lines, struggling to get needed supplies and trying to maintain our mood without using alcohol, drugs, yelling or hurting someone. We are feeling irritable, stressed and maybe angry. Our stats for domestic violence and child abuse are up and so is the use for some of alcohol and drugs. Please remember alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs we have in our world.

So, what do we do with our pent up, fearful, stressful, frustrating, angry feelings? There are three rules to following to feeling our feelings appropriately so we don’t cause damage with them. These apply to all ages of people, all:

  1. Can’t hurt ourselves. No cutting, suicide, alcohol/drugs, etc.
  2. Can’t hurt something alive – plants, animals and PEOPLE! This means no yelling, hitting, etc. Yes, you can pull weeds, LOL!
  3. Can’t damage property you don’t want to damage.

ALL OUR FEELINGS ARE GOOD, WHAT WE DO WITH THEM I GOOD OR BAD! All our feelings teach us about us and our world things we need to know to make a good decision. NEVER, NEVER make a decision based on your feelings unless in a dangerous situation. So, following the three rules we can feel our feelings safely. Here are some examples:

Anger – yell into a pillow, beat a punching bag or something else, fill you sink with water and yell into it, throw a ball against an outside safe wall, write an UNMAILED, UNSENT, letter to someone you are mad at and then destroy it. DO NOT WRITE ON EMAIL OR FACEBOOK, INSTANT GRAM, OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT.

Sadness and Loneliness -cry, talk to someone on the phone or online, reach out to someone alone, etc. Fear – feeling the feeling of fear needs us to relax into it, feel it and learn from it.

Blessings and safety to everyone.

Coping Behaviors, God, Healing, Transcender, Trauma, Uncategorized, Victims, VIRUS

VIRUS AND OUR CHILDREN AND TEENS

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The virus has its loneliness and anxiety/fear. We adults are being affected and we are adults. Our children of all ages are being majorly affected. They are asking the adults in their lives how to handle this; what happened when it happened before; what do we do to get through this….and the questions go on. Many are terrified. The most difficult answer we have to give is, we do not know, we have never been here before.

We need to help them, here is how:

Talk to them, but do not awfulize. Give them the facts that are appropriate for their age. They should not have all the details unless they are older teens.

  1. Be honest that we don’t have the answers yet, but are working to get answers, and will get them.
  2. Talk to them about how they feel without judgment. This includes anxiety/fear, being terrified, sadness, etc.
  3. Teach them about their feelings, if you don’t know about them, learn about them. See my previous post. It is important we learn from our feelings by feeling them appropriately.
  4. Many are having nightmares. Ask them to tell you about their dreams, have them create a story and draw a picture about it. The most important thing is to listen, honor and respect their feelings.
  5. Have fun times. Use this time to get to know your children and how they handle anxiety. Be there for them.
  6. Teach them about their feelings
  7. Talk about the unknown, and maybe make plans for what they would like to do after this is all over.
  8. Tell the good things that are happening with the virus, i.e., people recovering
  9. We can’t meet with friend or family, but what could we do…Skype? Zoom? Write a letter?
  10. Teach them about God and your religion. Give them something to turn too when there is no other place to turn.
Abuse, Abuse & Neglect, Coping Behaviors, God, Healing, Neglect, Overcoming, Relationships, Transcender, Trauma, Uncategorized, VIRUS

VIRUS AND LONELINESS

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I have been talking about loneliness. Now with the virus in everyone’s life one way or another, loneliness has a new difficult dimension.  We are meant to be social, helping and encouraging each other. Now we have a stay at home and six-foot rule. This creates more loneliness world wide that we ever could have imagined.

We do have to feel what is happening to us. Do it safely. All our feelings are good and help us get information from our world. Right now, the big one is anxiety/fear. So, release it but feeling it appropriately. REMEMBER WHAT WE DO WITH OUR FEELINGS IS GOOD AND BAD NOT THE FEELINGS THEMSEVLES!

To release your feelings appropriately so they don’t build up inside of us, we have to follow these three rules. We have to use these to feel our feeling fully and safely:

  1. Can’t hurt yourself
  2. Can’t hurt something alive – plants, animals, PEOPLE –no yelling or hitting
  3. Can’t damage property you don’t want to damage – no phone throwing….

What else can we do with this? There are a number of things we can do to help us and other through it. The important thing is to know we are going to get through this and I know that good will come out of it even if that doesn’t seem possible now. Here are some ideas:

  1. Call people
  2. Skype or Zoom with people
  3. When you see people, we can still wave, smile and say Hi!
  4. Pray for people, the world and the ending to this virus
  5. Attend religious services online
  6. Use this time to develop a hobby, clean, organize, play with your family, do projects, read, etc.
  7. Take time to get to know who you are and explore goals you want to accomplish
  8. Go for a walk, exercise
  9. There are good things happening in this world with the virus, the media seems only want to focus on the awful stuff. Look for the good stuff
  10. The more positive we are, the more we are going to feel better, less stressed and less anxious.

We are going to come out of this.

Please see next on helping our children

Abuse, Abuse & Neglect, Coping Behaviors, God, Healing, Human Trafficking, Neglect, Overcoming, Pain, Relationships, Transcender, Trauma, Uncategorized, Victims, War, wholeness

SPIRITUAL LONELINESS

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Spiritual Loneliness: The Ultimate Loneliness

The ultimate loneliness is a deep core spiritual loneliness for God. Some people tell me, I don’t believe in God, I don’t need Him.  He wasn’t there for me when I was being hurt. The reality is – there is a God. God loves you beyond what you can ever imagine. God wants to help you heal. God cries with us and we are told He even collects our tears. Whether you believe in God or not, God is always with you. You can’t get rid of Him/Her. All healing happens with God whether we know it or not.

One of the strongest areas of loneliness is missing God. We even have a physical spot in the upper abdomen, solar plexus, which is considered the spiritual area in our bodies. When we are lonely, that spot often feels like an emptiness, a gnawing deep inside of us that never goes away causing a deep dark depression and desperation. It may even feel like a never ending hunger and we try to fill it with food! Or we may go to the doctors thinking we have physical problems. This type of hunger can only be filled spiritually. Please understand that it may be a physical problem so see you doctor. And it may be a spiritual emptiness that nothing physical can fix.

I believe we are spiritual being, having a human experience in a very intense, difficult lifelong school. We are here to grow and learn how to love and be loved no matter what happens to us. It is hard and we have to work to transcend and go above and beyond not just endure and get through what life throws at us. For me, I need God to help me graduate with honors.

Whether we decide to be connected to God or not, we have been created to be in a relationship with God. We are not complete or whole without developing our spirituality.  Without being connected there will be the existential loneliness or depression constantly in our lives.

So what do we do if there has been no connection to God? To start, take time  to meditate, walk in the woods and ask God to let you know He/She is there.  Nature has a wonderful essences of love and lifts us through biological and chemical process just by being in  it. It is a choice! Choose to be open to developing and learning about your spirituality.  Everyone has a spiritual part, everyone.

 

Breaking Free from Trauma class is live streamed on Facebook. Come join us! Every Thursday at 6:30 PM at 1560 Leonard in Muskegon MI. Under Donna LaMar.

Abuse, Abuse & Neglect, Healing, Human Trafficking, Overcoming, Pain, Relationships, Trauma, Uncategorized, Victims

LONELIINESS AND TIME

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Loneliness and Time 

Here is a BIG one when we are dealing with loneliness. When we have been traumatized, we usually learn to live the future. Living in the present is not an option because in the present is where we have been so hurt, abused, terrified and LONELY. The present time, terrifies us. In the future, we see a ray of hope that life could possibly be better. So our focus in and on the future where there is hope.

Sometimes we live in the past going over and over the hurt, pain and fear. We put past memories into memory block where we don’t really don’t remember them. Some do become stuck in the past. For most, our hope is in the future. This is one of the main reasons we are lonely. We can’t live and be fully present in the future. The only place to we can live is in the present moment. So we are lonely not only for others, but desperately for ourselves too.

Sadly, the older we get, the future seems never to comes and aren’t able to create the life we dreamed and hoped for no matter how hard we worked and tried. We may see us running out of time maaybe we are older and we see little or no future to live or hope for. For whatever reason, our hope may fade and depression sets in with its fear and loneliness.  P.S.– If they have not nailed your coffin down, there is hope, life and purpose ready to be embraced in your life. It is not too late. We have worked with 90 year olds who changes their lives and their relationships before going home to God.

The reality, we can’t live in the future. To live in the present, we need to make a decision and then correct ourselves gently and lovingly to come back to the present moment. That takes effort and we have to feel all of our feelings that come. We can only feel feelings in the present moment. Another reason we like the future so much.

What happens is that because we have lived in the future and past, again, we are lonely for ourselves, others and God. Relationships occur only  in the present moment. The present it the only place we can truly know ourselves, be in fellowship with others and God. It is truly the only place we can live, heal and grow and not be lonely.

So, all that said, we need to remind ourselves to stay in the present and live our life. When we find ourselves in the past, we need to gently bring us back into the present and ask ourselves what was painful about it.  Do your feeling work and gain the wisdom it offers you.

 

Breaking Free from Trauma class is live streamed on Facebook. Come join us! Every Thursday at 6:30 PM at 1560 Leonard in Muskegon MI. Under Donna LaMar.

Abuse, Abuse & Neglect, Coping Behaviors, Healing, Human Trafficking, Neglect, Overcoming, Pain, Relationships, Transcender, Trauma, Uncategorized, Victims, War, wholeness

BITTERNESS – OUR LIVES & OTHERS LIVES

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We have talked a lot about bitterness because it can take over our lives so much if we do not decide to approach our pain and hurt in a healthier way.  Pain and hurt are usually the feelings under anger. Anger is often a cover feeling. We flip the pain to anger because anger is easier to feel, it has energy to it. Then if we are angry long enough or work to not to show our anger directly at people, we can create bitterness.

Bitterness is not a subject that makes people happy and inspired to go do great things. It stops us in creating enriching relationships with ourselves and others. So we don’t like talking about it. We can, however, make a decision to heal and create a healthier, less violent world. Wow! If we think about that, really think about it, we have the power to help make this world more loving and less violent!

If we choose to be less bitter or angry that in turn changes my interactions with just about everyone I come in contact with. Did you ever think about the cashier at the grocery store for instance? They check us out, pack our items and tell us to have a good day. Do we look at them? Smile? Ask how they are doing? Maybe they are having a discouraging day and a smile, kind word or even a thank you would mean so much to them. So often we can give them a hard time and complain or ignore them as if they were robots.  Again, it is a decision about what we are going to do with our feelings. Care, support and encourage or hurt, put down and damage?

To change, we have to make the decision to heal and grow from our wounds. We can continue to brood and “lick our wounds.” Brooding is what a hen does with her eggs when she is working to hatch them. She spreads her wings over the eggs, settles deeply down in the nest and stays there keeping them warm for many weeks. She rarely moves from the brooding until the eggs hatch. We don’t hatch eggs but we sure can brood well as humans hovering over our pain.

Our other choice is to heal, grow and gain wisdom from the trauma experiences we have endured and been damaged by. I don’t know about you, but I do know  what I do not want, I don’t  want the trauma and those people who hurt me to win! I want to show them that no matter what, I have chosen to be a different and caring kind person and I refuse to let their actions win.

Letting them win means I become like them –giving into the pain, acting out so I add to the world’s problems and hurt people like they did. I have personally chosen to be different than what happened to me. I choose to be different than what they did to me. I choose to be stronger, kinder, more courageous and smarter than the people who hurt me and not let what happened to me continue to rule my life. That does not me I am perfect and don’t hurt people sometimes, I am human and make mistakes

We make this change by healing and overcoming. It is hard work and we have to feel the feelings appropriately of what has happened to us to heal. We have to grieve everything that we got –hurt, neglect, pain and everything we didn’t get –love, caring, developing of our talents….. Yes it is hard and so worth it. We gain so much from the healing journey.

When we heal we learn we can forgive and become truly free! Remember forgiveness is not saying what they did was OK, it was not and never will be. But we can heal and rise above, that is transcend what has happened to us. We may have things we have to forgive ourselves for, and we learn we can!

Note: Please don’t give up, freedom from the pain is possible. Overcoming and becoming a Transcender is totally waiting for us. It becomes our gift to us, those around us and the world.

 

Abuse, Abuse & Neglect, Brain and Trauma, Coping Behaviors, Healing, Human Trafficking, Neglect, Overcoming, Pain, Relationships, Trauma, Uncategorized, Victims, wholeness

BITTERNESS – THE HURT

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Bitterness comes from pain, agony, hurt, sorrow, shame, etc. that we turn it into anger that comes from being traumatized. I am going to share my journey of dealing with bitterness from my journals during a very traumatic time my life when people I trusted betrayed, persecuted and mentally/emotionally attacked me over a long period of time. Maybe some of you can relate. I would value any thoughts and feelings you have about what it has been like for you.

The Hurt of Bitterness:

“I have and am struggling with bitterness…I didn’t recognize it as bitterness but saw it as anger, hurt, depression and criticalness. I feel they (those people out there) deserved my bitterness, yet they don’t.”

“I have been hurt by so many people in my life so many times, not just now ….. so many that it has created deep wounds in me. Deep, deep wounds. They are like the fjords of Norway in my soul (Norwegian ‘grand canyons’) and are still ripping into me deeper and deeper.

“The hurt with all its agony and anguish is almost not describable. The book called ‘The Dark Night of the Soul’ are the only words that come close. I am dripping in blood – black, deep red blood. I’m dripping in it, standing in it and it doesn’t stop. It keeps bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. The pain never stops. It has shredded my soul and only God can knit me back together.”

“I keep trying to stand up, but I bleed more and hurt beyond what words can express. My enemies hit hard then harder. I reel. I stand again and their tail hits hard and I am down again.  I want so much to stand and to keep going, keep working. I do, but limitedly. Sometimes it allows me to stand and take a few steps, but only for a short time. Because the tail hits again and again and I go down again.

“I finally get so I can stand, but there is no energy and little hope. How do I keep going? How? I have little hope and nothing left. They took everything, everything – my home, animals, work, and safety. I am in touch with my anger and the deep grief that has built up over and from decades of being hurt other times, but nothing like this. When I sleep there are nightmares. I watch endless TV trying to get tired enough and zoned out enough to just pass out on my bed and maybe not have nightmares. Better yet, to pass out on my couch downstairs, I don’t have nightmares there.

“I am so tired, a shower is exhausting, and putting a spoonful of food to my mouth is more that I can do, I have no energy. When I do eat, it is something I just grab that takes no effort. Soup is too much work.

“I don’t want to feel this vile stuff. I want it gone, but it doesn’t leave. It is my constant companion. I use the techniques I know – cognitive, behavioral, prayer and it helps for a while. I have to keep at it or it builds and builds and wants to become anger which wants to obliterate everything like a burst dam. My confidence is zero, but I can’t let people know. I have to pretend. Gratefully, my work with my clients stays free of the pain and I can still make a difference in their lives. This is God’s gift through all this.

“I watch for good things, loving things and caring friends. As a friend said to me, ‘We are loving you through this.’ I try to keep focused on them, but the hatred and anger that keeps coming at me from them overwhelms me and I have to find a way to keep going, have to. My trust with people is so low, so I struggle even with friends. I have to find a way to cope with all the pain and take the next step and keep going somehow….so I am turning bitter because I have no other way to deal with all the pain and, anger. It seems to have won for right now. I don’t know how else to deal with all this black, vile grief.

 

Abuse, Abuse & Neglect, Brain and Trauma, Coping Behaviors, Healing, Human Trafficking, Neglect, Overcoming, Pain, Relationships, Trauma, Uncategorized, Victims, War, wholeness

FORGIVENESS OR BITTERNESS?

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 When I or others are struggling with forgiving others who have hurt us, there is a process we go through which leads us to a important choice. Are we going to forgive and get better? Better, that is, to choose to become kinder, nicer, wiser, more understanding person with others as well as with ourselves. OR we will choose not to forgive because “I want them to suffer and feel my anger at them until they die!” Sadly, what unforgiveness does is hurt us – mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. We usually stop growing and end up angry, hurt and our bodies feel pain and we can develop different diseases including the possibility of diabetes, heart disease and cancers. Diabetes has a direct line from trauma to our bodies. Deep grief also attacks the immune system.

Without choosing to forgive and heal, we often become bitter. So our choice is bitter or better. It is a choice and only we can make it. I was talking to a person who had been sexual, mentally and emotional abused. She was deeply struggling to recover and heal from trauma. The pain in her eyes was over flowing with tears. The hurt seemed unbearable. I felt it with her. It is overwhelming her and seemed like it would never end.

She said, “I can’t forgive that thing. He did horrible things to me, horrible. I haven’t told you about some of the worst. I can’t speak the words yet. My doctor is worried about me having diabetes. I can’t keep going like this but I can’t forgive. If I forgive, he wins! He can’t win I have worked too hard to win and stay angry so he never gets control again, never. But I can’t keep staying in this pain, it is torture.”

Becoming bitterness is the process that takes our hurt, anger, despair and fear and changing our Internal Frame of Reference. The internal frame of reference is a philosophical concept. It is the view we have of ourselves and the world that was developed and came from our many experiences in life from people, situations, experiences, traumas, etc. It is how I decide to feel and think about it about me and the world I live in. Often victims start as happy, loving children who after being traumatized change to depressed, fearful and angry children/adults. This is a shift in their internal frame of reference.

If I have been hurt and angry and see no way of getting out of it, or bent on vengeance, my internal frame of reference will see the world as out to hurt me or get me. I then may choice to avoid the pain by becoming aggressive, shy, class clown, bully, negative, bitter, etc. This behavior is how I have chosen to be in my world, often because I had to protect me. This is my Being in the World. How I behave is based on how I view the world, my internal frame of reference which influences my feelings, thought and behaviors, or Being in the World. Now you are philosophers!

John came into my office, upset, panicked and very angry. “I’ll never forgive him. He hurt me, he destroyed my life.” We had been working on forgiving his father for molesting him, father was now deceased. He understood intellectually that forgiveness was something he had to do for him. The hard part was he needed to feel the feelings of the betrayal to heal and forgive. He said “I understand it is for me! I get that! I hate it! Hate it! I won’t ever forgive him, may he rot in hell for what he did to me. I hate him.” He then began to cry with deep, painful sobs. He cried and cried. He yelled at him, cried some more…then when the deep anguishing tears were done, he became quiet. “I do forgive him, I loved him in spite of what he did to me. All I wanted was love from him. He called it “love” that it wasn’t for sure. I will never understand why he could do such a horrible thing to me, never. I don’t think he intended to ruin my life.”

John chose to forgive, so he could heal and let the deep anguishing pain go. “I had such a hard time letting go of the pain. I had tucked it away deep inside of me in a coffin-like box where it would stay forever. But it didn’t stay there. It keep changing my how I acted and I end up hurting others and myself. I coped the best I could but it always got out somehow.”

“I thought if I could stay angry and not forgive him then I could keep going. I kept going but I became angry, bitter and started hating my life and people around me. I tried and tried to change, but I had to let the deep pain go. I had to forgive. That made the difference.”

 

Next time more about forgiveness and bitterness and its process.

Abuse, Abuse & Neglect, Coping Behaviors, Healing, Human Trafficking, Neglect, Overcoming, Pain, Relationships, Trauma, Uncategorized, Victims, War, wholeness

FORGIVENESS – SO IMPORTANT

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Forgiveness, we have to do it, no getting around it if we want to heal. Just what is forgiveness? There is a lot of misinformation about it so here is what I have learned from my many years working with people and helping them heal and grow.

Lately, I have had a traumatic situation come up that keeps coming up and coming up. I have been struggling to feel it and forgive it. I know it is the only way to get through this without turning bitter. It is my decision to not be bitter, they, with all their acting out towards me, can’t make me bitter. They don’t have that power.

The forgiveness I am talking about today is for forgiving trauma, when we have been abused, neglected or traumatized in some way. i am not talkign about our special relationships when something happens, we forgive and the relationship grows and keeps developing. What I am talking about is forgiveness for trauma.

In trauma, it is very important that we forgive them and ourselves or we can’t heal and grow. We will remain stuck and will stay in pain.

FORGIVENES IS A DEEP SPIRITUAL LETTING GO OF THE PAIN AND HURT THAT WAS CAUSED BY SOMEONE ELSE OR OURSELVES. Yes, we have to forgive ourselves too, sometime that is the hardest things to do.

So here is what forgiveness is:

  1. Forgiveness is NOT saying what they did was okay; it will always be wrong and hurtful.
  2. It is not saying I no longer hurt and it does not still cause me pain.
  3. Forgiveness is not saying “I forgive you and now everything is okay between us. Let’s stay together and be friends.”
  4. When there is trauma and the other person has not changed, we have to take care of ourselves and protect ourselves. This may mean separating ourselves from them.
  5. Forgiveness is not revenge. Vengeance is God’s to do, not ours. Vengeance is triggered from the anger we feel about what happened to us. The feeling under the anger is hurt, pain and sorrow. The anger helps us cope with the hurt so we don’t have to feel it. Sometimes we have the belief that getting vengeance will take away our pain and we will feel better, it doesn’t happen that way.
  6. Going after vengeance will keep us from healing
  7. To forgive, we have to feel our feeling fully. There is no other way, unless God does a miracle healing, I don’t usually see that in my business. When it does happen, I celebrate. Usually we have things to learn and wisdom to earn and that takes time.
  8. Forgiveness takes time. As we are on our healing journey, we forgive some in the beginning then as we continue, we forgive more. As we heal in a deeper way, forgiveness happens in a deeper way.
  9. Forgiveness is for US! It is wonderful when it can happen with the other person, but I find that is not as often as I’d like to see. That is sad. Forgiveness is for us to help heal the pain the trauma has caused. It is also to teach us how to bring peace in our world.
  10. Please remember, when we don’t heal and forgive, the pain from trauma we feel is stored in our bodies physically and it stays there hurting us emotionally and physically until we feel it, deal with it and forgive the other person. If it stays inside, it will hurt our bodies.
  11. Forgiveness says, “I forgive you for what you did, and forgive me for how I have hurt other people from my pain. I release you into God’s hands to have the consequences of your actions.” As long as I am not forgiving I am stopping me from healing and keeping the other person from getting their consequences to what they did.
  12. Sometimes the hurt is so great, I struggle to forgive. I want to heal and know to heal I have to forgive. When I can’t forgive, I ask God to please forgive them and/or me, through me because it am so wanting the freedom and healing that comes from it. Sometimes I am so locked in the pain I can’t release or can’t even say the words, “I forgive you.”

One last note for today. I believe in God and His amazing love. He forgives all of us from everything when we ask. When I have struggled to forgive me for what I may have said or done or not said or done, I remember that He the creator has forgiven me, who am I not to forgive me?

Blessings to each one of you who is on the journey of healing.

 

Abuse, Abuse & Neglect, Brain and Trauma, Coping Behaviors, Healing, Human Trafficking, Overcoming, Pain, Trauma, Uncategorized, Victims, War
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Trauma isn’t something that happens and is over. It stays in our bodies until we deal with its pain and consequences. First lets look at trauma. So what is trauma? Here is some information we now know about trauma and its effects on our entire body – mind, body, spirit, emotions, etc.

TRAUMA {APA}  IS “…THE EMOTIONAL RESPONSE TO AN EXTREMELY NEGATIVE EVENT WHICH INTERFERES WITH THE ABILITY TO LIVE A NORMAL LIFE+ AND MAY CAUSE PHYSICAL CHANGES WHICH EFFECTS OUR ENTIRE FUNCTIONING.

Here are some of the causes of trauma:

ABUSE/NEGLECT                         SURGERY                            JAIL or PRISON

WAR                                                   DEATHS

HUMAN TRAFFICKING                SEVERE ILLNESS/INJURIES

ACCIDENTS                                    NATURAL DISASTERS

VIOLENCE                                        BULLYING

RAPE                                                  WITNESS ACT OF VIOLENCE

POWERLESS                                   HOPELESS

DIVORCE                                          ADOPTION 

 Trauma may be a one time, multiple, or long-lasting repetitive event(s). These events affect everyone differently. Some people may appear to be more resilient than others and not seem to be affected, however trauma always affects us always. “Impact can be subtle, insidious, or outright destructive…factors that affect it are the person, the event, developmental process, resources of the person, family, ability to cope, community at large, meaning of trauma and sociocultural factors. How we cope may not be psychopathological (emotional problems/behaviors) but look like it. It is  just coping. {Trauma informed care (TIC)}

Initial reactions can include exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation, numbness, anger, withdrawal, dissociation, physical arousal, self-limited, eating and sleeping problems, etc. We then have to keep adapting and other coping behaviors will be created. Trauma affects all parts of us. Example, childhood trauma is biggest predictor of heart problems.

Our brain works hard to help us cope and keep going. “The human brain is continually sensing, processing, storing, perceiving and acting in response to information from the external and internal environments….especially sensitive to input that may indicate threat.” (Bruce Perry) Our entire being is always working to get to homeostasis/equilibrium or resting calmer place inside of us. Often we will use anything to get there including relationships, eating, substance abuse, and the list goes on.

Physiological Responses of the Brain

When there is trauma, brain is stressed and works to adapt – in anyway it can – functional and dysfunctional. The brain’s job is to sense, process, store, perceive and act on information from external and internal world to keep us alive.” It must work to regulated everything and bring it back to normal or homeostasis. Stress disrupts it.  “Stress is any challenge or condition which forces our regulating physiological and neurophysiologic systems to move outside of their normal dynamic activity. Traumatic events are extreme forms of stress.” B. Perry.

Stress/Trauma can vary on a continuum line from:

UNPREDICTABILITY    TO   PREDICTABILITY

MODERATE/SERVE     TO   MILD/MODERATE

VULNERABILITY          TO   RESILIENT

Homework:

Please, if you or someone you know have experienced trauma look at yourself and your behaviors, what helps you cope? Keep going? Sometimes asking a asking a friend (you trust) for their input helps us understand us better. Make a list and talk about with someone you trust if you can.