Trauma Education: What is a Trauma Survivor?
- Brina B
- Feb 3, 2021
- 5 min read
When you see the word trauma you may think about a physical injury, illness, or a stressful event. It can be difficult to comprehend the depths of trauma when using such vague identifiers. In this blog post, I will provide insight into what trauma is, the impact it has on survivors, and highlight the main areas of life that survivors must navigate on their journey of recovery.
The Depths of Trauma
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines trauma as an injury, a disordered psychic or behavioral state, or an emotional upset. These are vague identifiers that don’t get to the core of what trauma is and what it can do. Therefore, I recommend using the Psychology Today definition, which states “Trauma is the experience of severe psychological distress following any terrible or life-threatening event. Sufferers may develop emotional disturbances such as extreme anxiety, anger, sadness, survivor’s guilt, or PTSD. They may experience ongoing problems with sleep or physical pain, encounter turbulence in their personal and professional relationships, and feel a diminished sense of self-worth due to the overwhelming amount of stress.”
Not only does trauma impact the mental health of survivors, it also affects brain development. Trauma impacts three areas of the brain, the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex. These areas of the brain play a role in how you regulate and respond to emotions, develop memories, detect fear, and identify survival techniques. When trauma occurs, it weakens these areas of the brain creating over activity in how you respond to stress. With these areas of the brain weakened, trauma survivors may have difficulty recalling positive memories, and instead constantly remember the fear associated with their trauma. Thus, continuously activating their fight or flight response. As a result of this over activity, trauma survivors often find it difficult to cope with and manage stress.
Trauma’s impact on a survivor’s cognitive functioning and brain activity varies depending on the person, however, trauma as an entity plays a role in how survivors acknowledge, digest, and process information. Due to the weakened state of the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex, survivors often develop an approach to life that is heightened and quite frankly for some, exhausting. Trauma is more than a negative life experience, its shapes how your brain functions.
The Onset of Trauma
A traumatic event can occur at any stage of life, however, a lot of survivors experience childhood trauma that can include abuse, neglect, and/or abandonment. The onset of trauma during childhood is intense because it happens during the impressionable years of life, during a time when you are gaining an understanding of what life is and what it entails. For trauma survivors, this is where the changes in their brain begins to take to place. Imagine that, as a child your brain is developing an overactive response to stress and developing a world view based on it.
Childhood trauma essentially shapes the blueprint that survivors use to navigate through life. For some, trauma becomes chronic and follows them into adulthood. This means additional traumatic events occur, making it difficult for the survivor to cope with and manage traumatic events from the past. For some it becomes a revolving door of traumatic events with little time to catch their breath, thus reaffirming the responses and world views developed during childhood
On the other hand, some survivors enter adulthood attempting to process the extent to which their trauma has impacted them since they don't have to manage the revolving door of traumatic events, while other survivors may experience their first traumatic experience during adulthood. Regardless of when a survivor experiences their first traumatic event, their brain activity and cognitive development will be impacted. Every survivor is different, therefore the specifics on how the impact manifests will vary.
How The Impacts of Trauma Manifests
As a survivor, there is always an internal back and forth trying to decide what to share with others and what to keep to yourself. Even when I thought about creating this blog I hesitated because I’ve noticed that outside of the therapy profession, trauma isn’t generally viewed using the Psychology Today definition. If you live in the United States, you may have picked up on the subtle, and not so subtle, ways society downplays mental health and traumatic events into balls of “Life has its ups and downs” or “Adulting.”
That’s not to say that every negative experience is trauma, however, because of the way trauma is perceived, ignored, and sometimes misjudged by society...it can be difficult for survivors to acknowledge their experiences within themselves, let alone talking to other people about it. Ultimately, this internal back and forth impacts the quality of relationships a survivor develops.
Relationship with self is based on how a survivor feels, treats, and perceives themselves. This can include perceptions of what they deserve, what they're capable of, or what they will achieve. This is the foundation of a survivors identity. This is where they see, or in some cases don't see, their self worth.
Some survivors work to overcome the negative self image they developed, while others may struggle. For instance, some survivors may partake in a self fulfilling prophecy and reaffirm the negative image. Others may experience a dual self image, the version of themselves they present to the world and their true self that they keep to themselves.
Relationship with others centers on how survivors engage and interact in relationships, both platonic and romantic. For some survivors this can be intense because if they're operating from a blueprint that was shaped by trauma and engage with someone that doesn't know or understand that, it can create a lot of tension, misunderstandings, and loneliness.
How survivors engage and interact in relationships differ because there are several routes that can be taken. For instance, some survivors may find themselves in relationships that mirror their trauma because it's familiar or their impressionable mind reported that this is how relationship are. Some survivors may look for others to "fix" what's wrong with them, and in some cases survivors aren't even sure what needs to be fixed. Other survivors may look for others to fill the void or seek validation.
Relationship with the world refers to the age old western society question, “What do you want to do with your life?” For survivors, this can be a difficult question to answer if you don’t feel connected to a life that has only shown you pain and stress. As a result, some may focus on simply surviving and ultimately end up going through the motions without feeling like an active member of society. Other survivors don’t believe or have faith that things will change so they don’t put in effort, while others use work and productivity to succeed their way out of trauma. And unfortunately, there are some survivors who step off their road of recovery and commit suicide (note: click here if you or someone you know has thoughts of suicide or needs someone to talk to).
Trauma is a multilayered experience that impacts the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex in the brain, as well as cognitive functioning, which ultimately manifests in how survivors form relationships with themselves, other people, and the world around them. Trauma survivors aren’t all the same, which means every survivor has their own story. Every survivor responds and reacts differently to their experiences. The purpose of this blog is to shed a light on the depths of trauma, and take you into the heart of what trauma can do.
In the comments below, share your thoughts on this blog post then follow me on Instagram @brinabmotivates. If you will like to contact me directly you can email me by clicking the link at the top of the page.
Until next time ~Brina B
Disclaimer: This blog post doesn’t serve as therapy or professional help. If you’re in need of professional help, visit the resources section of the website.
Additional resources: Effects of trauma on the brain What is trauma?
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