Have you been reliving distressing memories? Experience consistent nightmares? React strongly to even small annoyances? Have difficulty maintaining relationships? Or perhaps you’ve witnessed these in someone you care about. These are just a few of the signs and symptoms of unresolved past trauma.
Trauma can cast a cloud over our lives, affecting our relationships, work, daily experiences, and overall quality of life, even when we are unaware of its effects on us. The first step to getting help for trauma is to recognize it. Here, Lighthouse Healing Center will explore how to recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma and the importance of seeking help and healing.
What is Trauma?
Trauma can result from going through or witnessing a wide range of experiences, such as accidents, acts of violence, living through natural disasters, and emotional or sexual abuse, to name a few. Trauma can affect anyone, in any culture, at any age, and its impact can be long-lasting if it has not been addressed. This type of trauma and its lasting effects is known as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
Recognizing the Signs of Trauma
The effect of trauma can rear its ugly head immediately after the event, or suddenly appear months or even years later. Although PTSD presents itself uniquely in each person, some of the most common signs of PTSD include irregularities in behavior, high emotional distress, sleep disturbances, persistent physical pain, and avoidant behavior. These are most likely to stem from the four main categories of PTSD symptoms: intrusive memories, avoidance, negative changes in thinking and mood, and changes in physical and emotional reactions.
Intrusive Memories
- Recurrent, Unwanted Distressing Memories: Try as you might to forget, many trauma survivors have persistent, recurring stressful memories of the event.
- Reliving the Traumatic Event: Commonly known as flashbacks, these are times when you may feel as though you are right back amid the situation, reliving the experience all over again.
- Nightmares: If you have PTSD, you are likely to experience nightmares about the traumatic event or memories, leading to sleep disturbances that may exacerbate your symptoms.
Avoidance
- Avoiding Thoughts and Conversations: If you have unresolved trauma, you may find yourself avoiding any thoughts of the event and choose to never talk about it because of the intense pain and emotion associated with your trauma.
- Avoiding Triggers: You may also find yourself avoiding places, people, activities, or things that remind you of the traumatic event.
Negative Changes in Thinking and Mood
- Negative Thoughts & Hopelessness: PTSD can lead you to think negative thoughts about yourself, toward others, and society as a whole. You may also feel hopeless about your future.
- Memory Problems: You might find yourself struggling with memory issues in general, unable to recall parts of your past or parts of your traumatic event.
- Difficulty Maintaining Relationships: Your trauma may cause you to shut down, resulting in struggles with intimate or interpersonal relationships.
- Lack of Interest: If you have PTSD, you might consistently feel negatively about activities, places, and people you once enjoyed, causing you to avoid participating.
Physical Symptoms of Trauma
You might often feel hypervigilant, always on the lookout for potential danger. Plus, you may experience sleep disturbances, difficulty concentrating, times of sweating and rapid heartbeat, trembling, or shaking. You may also have unexplained pain or other physical symptoms.
Emotional Symptoms of PTSD
Self-destructive behavior is a hallmark of PTSD, such as speeding, drunk driving, or making reckless decisions. You might also be overly angry, always irritable, or easily annoyed. Other emotions you may experience at heightened levels are guilt and shame despite the fact that the trauma was not your fault. You may feel detached from others and experience emotional numbness.
Seeking Help & Treatment for Trauma
The first step of healing is to recognize the signs of trauma and the healing process is often much more intensive. Yet the health and freedom that healing can bring are well worth the effort! The most important part is to remember that you’re not alone in healing from trauma! At Lighthouse Healing Center, we believe in the transformative power of treatment and the resilience of the human spirit. Our trauma treatment programs are designed to guide you toward a life filled with hope, happiness, and fulfillment. Contact us today to learn more and to get started on your journey to healing – you deserve it!
