Trauma is the Greek word for "wound."
Trauma is a psychological and emotional response to a distressing or disturbing event. These events can range in severity. For example, a car accident, divorce, or witnessing a crime can all be life experiences that can have a traumatic effect. While more extreme occurrences also affect emotional well-being, such as rape, mass shootings, assault, or surviving a tornado.
The emotional response you may experience following a traumatic event can be chaotic. It becomes hard to believe you'll ever feel safe again. You might feel helpless or numb. It is common for people to blame themselves. But your responses are NORMAL reactions to abnormal events.
Symptoms of Trauma
You may initially experience shock and denial when you have survived a traumatic event. It can be hard to wrap your head around the events that took place. These emotions can transform into a sense of anger that the event happened to you. Often, these emotional reactions can fade over time. Sometimes, however, they may worsen and persist over time. When this occurs, you may be experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. Symptoms of PTSD can include:
· Avoidance of events or activities that remind you of the traumatic experience
· Being easily startled or frightened
· Persistent feelings of sadness and despair
· Flashbacks of the event
· Unpredictable emotions
· Physical symptoms, such as nausea and headaches
· Intense feelings of guilt, as if you are responsible for the event
· An altered sense of shame
· Anger, irritability, and acting aggressively
· Feelings of hopelessness
· Social isolation
· Panic attacks
· Difficulty concentrating and poor performance
At the core of PTSD is avoidance. It's a survival tactic. Your mind is trying to protect you...this makes sense. But unfortunately, when it comes to trauma-related mental health disorders, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, avoiding the symptoms, thoughts, and emotions will worsen them. They can become like a snowball rolling downhill when you don't talk about the symptoms. They pick up speed and grow in size.
It's important to know that no two people respond to trauma similarly. And how people recover from trauma is also very unique to them. At Everthrive Counseling, a trained, compassionate trauma counselor can help identify the best approach to help support you. Our counselors move at a pace that is comfortable for you. While recovery won't be easy, it is possible. And the peace you'll achieve from getting professional trauma counseling will improve the quality of your life, breaking the hold those thoughts and memories have over you.
Trauma therapy can help
You should not go this alone. Trauma doesn't make sense—it's a jumble of emotional reactions. You might react to this by avoiding anything that reminds you of the traumatic experience. This includes talking about it. When this happens, thoughts can get more tangled in your mind.
Trauma counseling is not one-size-fits-all. Your recovery plan must address the symptoms and experiences unique to you. Our trauma counselors are training in various trauma treatment approaches that can be used in combination to help you take back your life.
Compassionate Trauma Counseling
Trauma counselors can help you gain your sense of safety, help you cope with the grief, heal from the trauma, and move on with your life. With PTSD and other trauma responses, you get "stuck" and remain in a state of emotional shock. Talking about it is hard. Many of our trauma counseling approaches are sensitive to this and help you gradually deal with the memories and flashbacks in a safe and supportive environment.
Trauma counseling approaches our trauma counselor might use in sessions with you include:
· Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): This approach helps you increase your awareness about thoughts and beliefs about the trauma. Your counselor will help you gain the skills to challenge thoughts in a way that allows you healthily react to emotional triggers. CBT is highly effective and easy to learn.
· Exposure Therapy: This approach helps reduce fear and avoidance of triggers to traumatic memories. Your trauma counselor will target the feared activities and situations in a safe and controlled setting.
· Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): EMDR is highly effective in treating trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This approach doesn't require you to talk in detail about the distressing events. EMDR therapy allows the brain to resume its natural healing process through bilateral stimulation. To read more about EMDR, please follow this link: EMDR Therapy
Coping with trauma is complex and exhausting. The trauma counselors at Everthrive Counseling are here to help you gain control back in your life and be your partner on the road to healing. Give us a call today at 833-473-3399.