rather than increase, and that others can be trusted to understand and help. In addition to avoidance as a defense, those with traumatic histories have typically developed negative cognitions, interpretations, and mental models.
Talking about the trauma can be important
Allow the person to talk about what happened, even if they become upset. Just be calm yourself and listen carefully – getting upset too doesn't help. Don't insist on talking if the person doesn't want to. They may need time to be alone with their thoughts.
You don't have to tell anyone unless you want to. It's up to you but I suggest if you do decide to share that it's with someone you trust. Family and friends are there to support you and support can help in the process of healing. Decide when you're ready but don't feel pressured.
And what's wrong with this? Everything. Talking about the trauma, even just trying to put what happened into words, can actually worsen a victim's trauma by re-activating it in the brain, and embedding it deeper.
It's not something to take lightly, and it's important to deal with it in an appropriate manner. But what happens if you don't? Unresolved trauma can have serious physical, psychological, and emotional consequences, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and even physical health complications.
Trauma eviscerates your relationships with others.
Because a key component of many traumatic experiences involves the violation of trust by a loved one or a loved one's inability to follow through on a promise, ignoring a traumatic experience you've had will make it difficult to form close bonds.
It's quite another to commit to discussing it with someone else. The truth about trauma therapy is that it may make you feel worse at times. Trauma shatters a person's sense of safety, so it's vital to find a mental health professional you feel comfortable sharing with and trust to lead you through the healing process.
When somebody experiences a traumatic event, they're often supported by people in social work, legal and clinical contexts who ask them repeatedly to recount their personal stories. This retelling of these events can exacerbate symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and potentially re-traumatize the person.
While venting can be a natural part of working through our negative emotions, does it become toxic at a certain point? It turns out, it can. And that's when venting becomes trauma dumping — the act of oversharing your emotions in a way that becomes harmful to the other person.
Intrusive memories
Recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event. Reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again (flashbacks) Upsetting dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event. Severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the traumatic event.
Communicating will be important if you are to continue to be around the person who traumatized you. This includes discussing what happened and acknowledging the situation. Yet, it also means learning and practicing communication skills so that situation doesn't happen again in the future.
In addition to the difficulty in actually disclosing about trauma, is the reality that many people simply won't relate their own life experiences to this concept of trauma. One type of trauma that is often not disclosed, for example, is the witnessing of harm being done to others, or distress experienced by others.
This is why mental health professionals highly encourage patients with PTSD to tell others about their condition. If you are feeling shame or embarrassment, sharing it with others may seem counterintuitive, but in time, it will help you get better.
Trauma dumping is defined as unloading traumatic experiences on others without warning or invitation. It's often done to seek validation, attention, or sympathy. While some initial relief may come from dumping your trauma onto someone else, the habit actually does more harm than good.
Talk therapy helps people with PTSD in many ways. Talking about the traumatic memories with a trained therapist can provide the patient with education about their symptoms so they don't feel so alone and out of control.
Smiling when discussing trauma is a way to minimize the traumatic experience. It communicates the notion that what happened “wasn't so bad.” This is a common strategy that trauma survivors use in an attempt to maintain a connection to caretakers who were their perpetrators.
Trauma is a factor that can cause overthinking. People who have experienced trauma are more vulnerable to overthinking. For example, childhood abuse or parental neglect can alter an individual's brain to stick in a constant hyper-vigilance state.
Trauma dumping: With trauma dumping, you overshare difficult or intimate personal information without the other person's consent or during inappropriate times. You don't consider how your words impact the listener, and you're not open to advice or solutions.
Initial reactions to trauma can include exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation, numbness, dissociation, confusion, physical arousal, and blunted affect. Most responses are normal in that they affect most survivors and are socially acceptable, psychologically effective, and self-limited.
For some, talking about their trauma is an initial step toward healing. But for others, sharing an experience and then having the response be negative can harm recovery. It can shut them down and lock the psychological vault, if not for forever, then at least for a long time.
We often will feel sad and cry after a highly traumatic event. The crying can be a way for the nervous system to come down from the fight-or-flight response, since crying is associated with the parasympathetic nervous system which calms the mind and body.
Young Children and Trauma. Children can experience trauma as early as infancy. In fact, young children between the ages of 0 and 5 are the most vulnerable to the effects of trauma since their brains are still in the early formative years.
You may have more emotional troubles such as: Feeling nervous, helpless, fearful, sad. Feeling shocked, numb, or not able to feel love or joy. Being irritable or having angry outbursts.
Learning to be vulnerable and to open up to others will advance your healing process. If you feel uncomfortable being vulnerable, remember that sharing emotions and feelings is a skill that you can develop as you gain more insight into your recovery process.