Project Reassure: For-Self-advocates-Understanding Trauma

Trauma is an event that occurs and may affect people in different ways.

Trauma may happen for things like:

• • Serious injury or harm
  • Violence
  • Death

Ways Trauma Can Happen

Trauma may happen directly to people. An example of direct trauma is someone having an accident. If a person sees something happen to someone else it may cause trauma. An example of this is seeing someone have an accident. Hearing about trauma happening to someone else may cause trauma for the person hearing about it.
An example is if someone tells a person details about an accident that happened.
Sometimes trauma may happen at work. An example of this is a police officer or firefighter.

When Does Trauma Affect People

Some people are affected by trauma as soon as the event happens. Some people may not feel the affects of trauma for days, weeks, or months. Some people are affected immediately by trauma and can continue to be effected for days, weeks, or months.

Impacts of Trauma

Trauma can affect many different areas of a person’s life.

Some of areas that can be affected are:

• • Physical health
  • Relationships and getting along with others
  • Emotions
  • Mental health

Types of Trauma

Trauma and traumatic events can happen in many different ways. Below are some definitions and examples of how trauma can happen.

Single Event:

• • This type of trauma only happens once. An example of this is a car accident.

Chronic Event:

• • This type of trauma is a series of events that happens over a period of time. An example of this is the COVID pandemic.

Developmental Trauma:

• • This type of trauma happens in early childhood. It is usually chronic. An example of this is having cancer and being in the hospital for many months at 5 years old.

Relational Trauma:

• • This type of trauma is caused by someone you have a relationship with. An example of this is being physically abused by a parent or caregiver.

Complex Trauma:

• • This is when someone has many different types of trauma events. An example of this is someone whose parents divorced when they were kids, saw a family member get into a bad car accident, and was physically abused by a caregiver when they were a teenager.

Intergenerational Trauma:

• • This is when trauma responses are passed down across generations by people who experienced a trauma. This can include a trauma that effects one individual, multiple family members, or an entire community. Examples of this are slavery and the Holocaust.

Specific examples of traumatic events include:

• • Natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, or tornados.
  • Accidents like car accidents or fires.
  • Abuse including physical, mental, or sexual.
  • Neglect.
  • Death of a loved one or close friend.
  • Medical events like surgery or chronic illness.
  • School events like bullying or school shootings.
  • Community events like riots or high crime levels.
  • Interpersonal events like domestic violence.
  • Wars and genocide like the Holocaust.
  • Human trafficking.

People are affected by and deal with trauma in different ways. People may go through the same trauma but respond in different ways. Some people may show signs of traumatic stress and others may have few or no signs.
People may respond to trauma in different ways depending on how old they are. Children who go through a traumatic event may wet the bed, become more attached to a parent or person who cares for them, or act out the traumatic event when they play.
Older teens may act rudely, be disrespectful, or make unhealthy choices. Adults might become angry, avoid others, or act out aggressively towards themselves or others.

Some signs that a person may have gone through a traumatic event include:

• • Signs of Depression: They may have a sad or depressed mood, lose interest in favorite activities, feel hopeless, have trouble sleeping or sleep too much, may eat less or a lot more than usual.
  • Signs of anxiety: They may have panic attacks, worry, or feel overwhelmed.
  • Changes in emotions: They may be more angry or irritable.
  • Concentration: They may have a hard time focusing or concentrating or be more forgetful.
  • Health problems: They may feel tired, have headaches or stomach aches, or get colds more easily.

Traumatic Stress

Trauma can be experienced when:

• • A person goes through a traumatic event.
  • A person sees someone go through a traumatic event or learns about a traumatic event from someone else.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is diagnosis given to someone who experiences trauma and develops symptoms that make it difficult to function in their daily lives.

Post-traumatic stress can cause symptoms such as:

• • Experiencing the trauma over again through flashbacks, nightmares, or upsetting thoughts.
  • Avoiding places, events, people, objects, thoughts, and feelings that are reminders of the traumatic experience.
  • Feeling tense or easily startled.
  • Being overly aware of yourself or surroundings.
  • Trouble with sleeping.
  • Getting easily upset, having outbursts, feeling irritable or grumpy.
  • Feeling guilt or blame.
  • Loss of interest in doing things you once liked or enjoyed.
  • Thinking bad thoughts that won’t go away about people, the world, or yourself.

Trauma affects everyone differently. Not everyone that experiences trauma will be diagnosed with PTSD.

If you experience a traumatic event, you could have all, some, or none of the symptoms of PTSD.

Four Steps of the Survival Circuit

1. 1. Something that we see, hear, smell, taste or touch tells our brain there could be danger. The alarm part of our brain reacts right away without thinking.
   2. Our brain tells our body to get ready for possible danger. The sympathetic nervous system starts acting right away without thinking. The black centers of our eyes get bigger, our heart beats faster, and we start sweating.
   3. The alarm part of our brain quiets down. The “thinking parts” of our brain start to figure out what is happening. Our brain thinks about what is going on and compares it to memories of things that happened before. With this new information, our brain decides if we are really in danger or not.
   4. If our brain decides that there is no danger, it tells our body to relax. The parasympathetic nervous system is turned on. The black centers of our eyes get smaller and our heart beats slower. This helps us relax and make it easier to make choices and return to routines.

.

Post-Traumatic Stress and The Survival Circuit

The survival circuit is how our bodies and brains respond to threats around us. Trauma can change how the survival circuit works in our brain.

• • Sometimes when people go through trauma they may have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, also called PTSD.
  • PTSD can change the way our brains work and how we understand information.
  • When someone has PTSD, the alarm part of their brain tells their body to get ready for danger sometimes when there is no danger.
  • PTSD can also make the alarm part of our brain, or the survival circuit, work too much.
  • The alarm signals from the brain keep telling our body to get ready for danger even when the threat is gone.
  • The survival circuit may send alarm signals when we remember or think about trauma.
  • This can make our body have strong feelings or reactions even when there is no physical danger or threat.
  • When the survival circuit in our brain is overloaded, it can be hard to pay attention or make good choices.

When your brain thinks there is a threat it will send signals to your body to react to help keep you safe. This can happen when it is a real danger or if you think there is a danger but there is not.
There are different ways your body can react when your brain thinks there is a threat.
These are sometimes called the “Four F’s”.

• • Fight: The brain and body prepare to attack. A person may look angry and ready to fight. They may yell at other people, pick fights, or have a bad temper.
  • Flight: The brain and body prepare to get away. The brain and body prepare to run away or escape. A person may look anxious and afraid. They may try to avoid threats by staying away from people.
  • Freeze: The brain and body “freeze”. A person may feel like they cannot move or respond. They may stare and “space out” or may feel sad or ashamed.
  • Feign/Fawn: The brain and body worry about the next danger. A person may feel like they need to say “yes” and make people happy to avoid threats from other people. They may have a hard time setting healthy limits, rules, or boundaries for their own needs.