Trauma and Your Nervous System: What happens when you are triggered

What is trauma?

When people experience trauma, it means they experienced or witnessed an event that caused significant distress physically or mentally, and often both, and overwhelms a person’s ability to cope.  

The event may have been accidental and physical, such as a car crash or natural disaster, or intentional and interpersonal such as abuse and violence. The event may also have been an emotional loss, as can be the case in a divorce or a loved one’s death. Trauma can occur as a single event, which is called acute trauma, or as a repeated experience over time, known as chronic trauma. If there are relatively close-occurring multiple events that happen, that person has experienced stress referred to as complex trauma. 

A fourth type of trauma is vicarious trauma, which describes the changes that some treatment providers and caregivers experience from working closely with trauma survivors and can include increased emotional lability, being preoccupied with the survivor’s stories and struggles, emotional detachment, pessimism, and trouble maintaining healthy boundaries.  

Trauma Symptoms

 Symptoms can be immediate or delayed and range from mild to severe. On the more severe end, a person may lash out verbally or physically when the event is discussed, have nightmares “flashing back” on the situation, or withdraw from those around them.

Symptoms commonly experienced, according to the National Institutes of Health, related to trauma include:

●      Exhaustion

●      Confusion

●      Sadness

●      Anxiety

●      Agitation

●      Numbness

●      Dissociation

●      Physical arousal

●      Difficulty expressing emotions

While these are more immediate responses, delayed responses include:

●      Persistent fatigue

●      Sleep disorders

●      Nightmares

●      Fear of happening again

●      Withdrawal

●      Lashing out verbally or physically

●      Flashbacks- feeling as though the event is happening in the present

●      Depression

The science behind the stress

The medical community has studied the effects that trauma has on the human nervous system, both physically and mentally. Our autonomic nervous system helps control actions our bodies tend to do for us automatically, such as digestion, breathing, and heart rate. It also takes an inventory of our surroundings, always staying alert to identify, understand, and react to danger signals. When we are alerted, we step into the first stage described above and freeze. The length of time can be different, lasting mere seconds to a more delayed amount of time. This is when the body’s senses are processing what it has seen, heard, smelled, touched, or tasted.

For our second stage of mobilizing to action, the sympathetic part of the nervous system comes into play. Our adrenal glands prepare us to act by releasing epinephrine, otherwise known as adrenaline. Blood pressure, breathing, and heart rate rise, pupils dilate, and our muscles prepare for defense. To achieve this, the body borrows from digestion, salivation, insulin, and food reserves. Often referred to as fight or flight, a person must choose, in mere seconds and based on instinct, the best method to handle the situation. It is displayed through movement big or small, fast or slow, depending on what the mind has processed and deems appropriate as a response.

This level of energy helps us in events that we may not normally be able to accomplish, like leaping across a rooftop, smacking a poisonous spider off our child’s hand, or carrying someone away from danger we would normally not be able to hold.

Emotions come into play that are associated with trauma or stress; fear is the most primal and based upon survival of the experience. Anger, disgust, and frustration can build into fight reflex, while flight may come with panic, fear, worry, or sadness. Any of these described emotions begin to fill in after this initial state of freeze, but fear to drive surviving is still the overall factor in the actions taken.

As the danger (or perceived danger) subsides and we seek others through social engagement to release calming emotions as we come down from the second level, our parasympathetic nervous system takes control. Our muscles relax, no longer tensed for danger. Our heart rate and blood pressure slow to normal levels, along with our digestion, as our body works to restore the tanks it borrowed from. Once the situation has been controlled through intervention, escape, or the realization it was based on false information, people seek connection and safety in the harboring sanctuary offered through social engagement. Compassion, curiosity, calmness — which had diminished — rebuilds as your physical body relaxes. Some of the earlier feelings that were temporarily put aside can be processed as information is shared.

The long-term impact of trauma

While many people’s trauma symptoms eventually recede, others continue to experience symptoms and it affects their long-term mental well-being. The term to describe this level is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If untreated it can severely impact their daily lives.

Some examples of this include: 

●      Self-medicating with alcohol, drugs, food, or cigarettes

●      Seeking relief through activities like gambling and sexual activity

●      Avoiding people, places, or things that may trigger anxiety or another symptom

●      Missing social connections and support systems due to shame from inability to “move on” or inability to trust others

●      Exhibiting developmental delays, more commonly in children, or behaving like a younger version of themselves (adults)

●      Experiencing sleep problems

●      Experiencing negative health consequences, such as chronic pain, IBS, diabetes, blood pressure issues

Seeking help with trauma

If you experience a traumatic event and find that you are not feeling like yourself and your life is being negatively impacted, an experienced therapist can be helpful in your recovery. The long-term effects of living with trauma symptoms, if not treated, can impact you personally in both physical and mental ways, as well as relationships, work/school commitments, and the ability to live a peaceful life. It is absolutely possible to find healing and regain your life, and therapy can help you do just that.