The topic of trauma and importantly, how we might heal from the experience, will be the focus for discussion in our twelfth meeting of the mind fit community. It is quite incredible how this group has evolved over the last 6 months, and I am very grateful for the support and contribution from you all. I am also grateful to our hosts, Retrocave Café for allowing us to meet at their fine premises. It is so powerful to see that there is a willingness to invest in our mental landscape so that we are better placed to weather the challenges life throws at us and that we are better able to support those who mean the most to us when life brings challenge to their door.
So, to trauma…
Trauma is a word that it is increasingly commonplace and, like all words and terms, can be used to express very different sentiment depending on the context in which it is used. People will often casually say they have been ‘traumatised’ by something as innocuous as not getting a cup of coffee in the morning but sadly this is not the type of trauma we will seek to consider in this writing…
Trauma, by definition is a physical injury or wound or a powerful psychological shock that has damaging effects (Oxford Dictionary of Psychology Fourth Edition) but in the broader context of our mental health most people think of trauma in the context of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD, which is a delayed and protracted response to experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. PTSD is a term which became more widely known and talked about following the Vietnam war. Traumatic events are tragically part of life and statistically all of us will experience at least one traumatic event in our lifetime but is the transformation of the traumatic event (or events) into PTSD which create the most damaging impact to the life of the individual and could also have a correspondingly significant impact to those that are closest to them.
Trauma has been extensively researched but like all sciences of the mind, it is work in progress and further understanding and insight is inevitable that may well turn our current knowledge of this field on its head. This piece does not have the ability to cover all of the work on trauma or the various approaches to approaching it and healing it and so, it will be approached through a single, but interesting lens.
Trauma can often be deeply hidden, with some people unaware of the specifics of the event(s) which have impacted them and may be seeming to operate well in certain areas of their lives. Some people living with PTSD can appear to be very successful professionals, masking the deep turmoil in their private and inner lives.
As mentioned above, what causes a traumatic event can be very wide ranging, from the loss of a loved one (through illness, death or betrayal), through serious illness such as the development of cancer, personal physical or sexual assault, abusive relationships, witnessing or participating in a traumatic event such as a vehicle crash, being subject to a war, terrorist event, or ecological disaster; and this list should not be taken to be exhaustive by any means. What turns a traumatic event into long lasting PTSD is not so much the event itself, appalling though that maybe, it is the fact that our model of the world is so undermined by the event that we cannot feel safe in any aspect of our lives. Our subconscious essentially goes into critical survival mode and shuts down any aspect of our life which it cannot be certain about. This results in feelings of anxiety, depression or both, can collapse previously strong relationships and the ability to perform in whatever context of life we have previously been able to do so. In essence trauma causes us to question our ability to keep ourselves safe in any other context of our lives, or to question our ability to correctly be able to assess the trustworthiness of others. If we deem ourselves to be the perpetrator of a horrific event, such as through war, or if we feel we caused a vehicle accident which significantly damaged another, then we lose our model of ourselves and can be unable to reconcile our previous sense of self with the “monster” that we see that we have become.
It is this loss of certainty in key aspects of our lives which brings us crashing down, with all the pillars of our reality suddenly exposed, vulnerable and crumbling.
So, what can we do to begin to heal from a traumatic experience?
Often the event or events that caused the trauma response are fragmented or lost within our memory and our subconscious is not able to understand that the event is in the past. We are therefore left perpetually reliving the experience or fragments of it, at seemingly random moments in our present lives. Reassembling the story in a coherent manner and allowing us to process the consequential emotions that are part of the experience is often a key mode of healing. However, the very act of reassembling the story must be handled with utmost care as the incredibly powerful associated memories and emotions have the potential to retraumatise us and put into an even more challenging space. This doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be approached but it needs to be down with due respect and patience.
The strong emotional element of trauma often requires, or at minimum greatly benefits from, an embodied element. Traumatic events can often leave us dissociated from our bodies and the sensations and experience of the body can feel very alien or even hostile. Due to the inherent mind-body connection, if our sense of the body is disturbed then our mind will be also and if we cannot reconnect to a healthy experience within our bodies then moving forward can be almost impossible. Practices such as yoga or mindfulness, again when approached with care and respect, can rebuild a healthy foundation within the body and support a path forward from trauma.
A third key component of trauma healing is the building an integrated, forward identity. There is often a sense that we must somehow return to how and who we were before the events that shattered us, an expectation or desire to return to an experience of innocence. But this can never be, our eyes have been opened to the horror of experience and we cannot shut them, nor should we really in our heart of hearts, desire to, because that would leave us vulnerable to a repeat of the experience which nearly crushed us. Instead, we need to build a forward narrative of our lives, integrating the experiences and building from a new foundation. This aspect can only take place once we have resolved the narrative of the experience and returned to a degree of harmony within our bodies, but this stage is the reintegration of our new self, back into the world around us. A world in which can once again experience, grow, and love.
Sadly, this writing does not have the ability to cover this topic fully, and indeed it is a topic which we do not yet fully understand, but hopefully there is something in here to give you thought or hope and might help you connect with your own experiences or perhaps those of someone close to you.
If you want to read more about trauma and recovery, I can personally recommend the work of Judith Herman and Bessel Van Der Kolk, but if you are able to join us on Thursday 18th at 6pm at Retrocave on Ashely Road, we would love to have you be part of the conversation and help us to explore this further.
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