Moving a little bit from our last episode on Relationship Struggles, today, we’ll be discussing Trauma and Traumatic Experiences.
What is Trauma?
When asked if they’ve experienced trauma, many people would immediately respond, Yes! without even knowing the meaning. There are different meanings of this word “Trauma” that would give us a deeper understanding of what it entails and how to actually know if we’ve experienced it.
- Trauma is the result of extremely upsetting, frightening, or stressful situations that are either beyond our control or too tough for us to handle. It could be a single incident or a series of related ones that take place over time.
- Trauma is the lasting emotional response that often results from living through a distressing event.
- Trauma is a psychological response to a deeply distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope, causing feelings of helplessness, diminishing their sense of self, and affecting their ability to feel a full range of emotions and experiences.
What are the signs/effects that show someone is experiencing trauma?
There are physical signs, psychological signs, and emotional signs. Few simple ones are: Anger, Irritability, Sadness, Depression, Eating Disorder, Anxiety and Fear, Panic attacks, Insomnia, Withdrawal from people, Compulsive behaviors, and so on.
Now, experiencing one or two of these signs does not necessarily mean it’s trauma, but if you experience more than three signs at the same time especially immediately after an incident, then it is probably trauma.
What causes trauma?
This is one of the most sensitive issues people find it hard to open up about based on the circumstances around it.
Trauma is negative which simply means it was caused by something equally negative. What might that be? Rape, Accidents, Loss of a loved one, Domestic violence, Bullying, Abuse, Neglect, etc.
Like I stated earlier, it is a very sensitive topic. Incidents like mentioned above leave dangerous scars on the victims.
Dangerous? Yes. This is because a person carrying the weight of these incidents on their shoulders are prone to harming themselves. Psychologically, Physically, Emotionally and otherwise.
You could even develop PTSD from somebody else’s incident. How? Hearing about people’s incidents like Rape and Domestic violence can make you so afraid that you start ignoring people and places that makes you remember such incidents.
For example, “My friend, princess, told me some time ago that when she closed from work, instead of coming back home with her colleague as usual, she decided to stop by one eatery and then go home alone. That’s how she was coming back and a group of guys attacked and raped her. Omo, since that day till even now, fear just entered my body. Anytime I’m coming back home a little late and I see a group of boys standing around one side, I can’t pass there o. I’m not saying they are rapists o, I don’t just want to take chances at all at all”.
Everybody is like this lady in the above example, other people will say it’s “Common sense na” or “it’s called learning from people’s mistakes”. They may be right. It’s common sense to not walk alone at night, but ask yourself, before hearing about this incident or any other incident.. didn’t you walk alone at night? Were you always afraid of guys hanging around at night? Were you always so safety conscious? The answer is No. Before that story, you were less bothered about certain things but now, you can’t date fair men– they’re woman beaters/cheats, you can’t pass certain places again else they’ll rape you.
Coping mechanisms of trauma
There are the positive and the negative ways people tend to cope with traumatic experiences:
For the positive, we have: Seeking professional help (Therapy). If you don’t want to visit a therapist, you can talk to some of your trusted close friends or even join a support group. You can take some relaxation classes like yoga, to reduce anxiety. You could also exercise, get a new hobby, eat good food and get proper sleep. Do things that will take your mind off that traumatic incident.
There are people who feel like talk to people, sleeping, are silly ways to cope with trauma and so they sought out other ways to go about it: Using drugs so they can numb the pain. Blocking out feelings and shutting people out. Aggression. Self harm. Disordered eating and excessive thinking.
What people don’t realize is that these negative coping mechanisms cause us more harm than good, instead of you to be getting better you’ll get worse. You’d be addicted to drugs causing problems in the future, you’ll be depressed after shutting off people in your life, you’ll always be suicidal because you feel your life is a mess.
This article is here to tell you that it’s okay to be hurt, it’s okay to feel pain, it’s okay to wish life was better BUT it is not okay to stay at rock bottom because of a mistake of the past, it is not okay to be an addict and it is definitely not okay to feel suicide would be the best option for you. You deserve better and only you can give yourself better, so snap out of that negative bubble you’re in and make yourself better for you.
