In these cases, the experience can become stored in the body, resulting in mental or physical illness or both — and can lead to a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The issues get lodged in our tissues and our brains as well.
It disrupts your memory storage processes and changes the way your brain works. Trauma left untreated can have a big impact on your future health. Trauma can lead to physical and emotional distress, which can lead to more serious health conditions, such as heart attack, stroke, obesity, diabetes, and cancer.
The normal healing and recovery process involves the body coming down out of heightened arousal. The internal alarms can turn off, the high levels of energy subside, and the body can re-set itself to a normal state of balance and equilibrium. Typically, this should occur within approximately one month of the event.
Right after a trauma, almost every survivor will find it hard to stop thinking about what happened. Stress reactions—such as fear, anxiety, jumpiness, upsetting memories, and efforts to avoid reminders—will gradually decrease over time for most people.
Studies suggest that trauma could make you more vulnerable to developing physical health problems, including long-term or chronic illnesses. This might be because trauma can affect your body as well as your mind, which can have a long-term impact on your physical health.
There are physical manifestations as well, such as cardiovascular problems like high blood pressure, stroke or heart attacks. There has been research to connect unresolved trauma to fibromyalgia and general inflammation in the body, which can lead to autoimmune disorders and organ fibrosis.
“In the face of physical or emotional pain, or a traumatic incident, our sympathetic nervous system has three responses: fight, flight or freeze. Emotional numbing is freezing. Our brain shuts down as a protective response to keep us safe when our nervous system is overloaded,” he says.
Grief can be stored in various parts of the body, such as the heart, lungs, throat, and stomach. People may also experience physical sensations like heaviness in the chest or tightness in the throat when experiencing grief.
Each emotion is associated with a specific organ: Lung is effected by sadness, heart by joy, spleen by worry, liver by anger, and kidney by fear or fright.
The energy of the trauma is stored in our bodies' tissues (primarily muscles and fascia) until it can be released. This stored trauma typically leads to pain and progressively erodes a body's health. Emotions are the vehicles the body relies on to find balance after a trauma.
Aside from affecting your mood, thought processes, sleep schedule and digestive system, depression also impacts one of your most vital organs – your heart. When a person is depressed, stress hormones surge through the body, causing the heart rate to quicken and blood vessels to tighten.
Complex trauma describes both children's exposure to multiple traumatic events—often of an invasive, interpersonal nature—and the wide-ranging, long-term effects of this exposure. These events are severe and pervasive, such as abuse or profound neglect.
Reconnection and Reintegration
The final stage focuses on reintegrating you into your everyday life and relationships with a sense of empowerment and control. During this stage, prioritizing self-care is vital. You develop new beliefs and life-affirming connections instead of old ideas shaken by the traumatic incident.
Dissociation occurs when a person feels disconnected from themselves and the world around them. It can be a healthy response to boredom, stress, trauma, fear or emotional overload, allowing ourselves to avoid some of the strong physiological responses to a negative situation.
The symptoms of unresolved trauma may include, among many others, addictive behaviors, an inability to deal with conflict, anxiety, confusion, depression or an innate belief that we have no value.
Unhealed trauma can lead to a variety of mental health challenges in adulthood, including depression, anxiety, and addiction. By understanding the link between childhood wounds and mental health in adulthood, we can learn how to start the process of healing trauma and achieve a healthier, happier life.
If you have experienced a traumatic event and do not address it, it can lead to mental and physical health conditions, such as depression or heart disease.
Physical Symptoms of Trauma
Psychological trauma often leads to physical complaints such as problems with eating and difficulty falling or staying asleep. People who experience childhood trauma may also have low energy levels and unexplained aches and pains or other physical sensations.
Guilt, Fishkin says, is associated with activity in the prefrontal cortex, the logical-thinking part of the brain. Guilt can also trigger activity in the limbic system. (That's why it can feel so anxiety-provoking.)
Anger is the emotion of the liver and the gallbladder, organs associated with the wood element. Emotions like rage, fury or aggravation can indicate that this energy is in excess, and when we experience these emotions consistently, our liver can get damaged. At this point, headaches or dizziness can be common.