Managing Traumatic Stress
What is traumatic stress? Stress is the physical, psychological and emotional arousal of the nervous system in response to an external stimuli. What is a trauma? Psychiatrists, GPs and Psychologists recognise trauma to be the result of an unexpected, negative experience which suddenly and unpredictably impacts upon a persons life. Traumatic events are life-threatening, or pose significant risk to yourself, or pose serious threat to your physical, psychological boundaries. Or you may observe a traumatic injury to someone very close to you and also experience trauma.
The degree of trauma varies across situations and individuals and is difficult to quantify or predict. The nature of the event, the presence/absence of social support, a persons habituated coping styles, developmental history, early childhood experience, and personality all impact the degree to which any given individually will be traumatised.
Traumatic reactions therefore can range from mild to extremely debilitating degrees of fatigue and exhaustion, poor concentration and memory, flashbacks of the event, intrusive thoughts, confusion and disorientation, restlessness, sleep disturbance and nightmares, nausea and headaches, fear anxiety and panic, detachment and numbness, avoidance, depression and guilt, withdrawal and tearfulness, and an exaggerated startle response to a range of sensory cues.
Clearly these symptoms will generally impact our daily living for some period of days up to a couple of weeks , but should this disruption persist or worsen beyond this point, then the trauma may be to large for you to digest alone.
As a psychologist, I can support you to digest the intense emotions or physical sensations which may consume you, help you thaw the numbness and slowly fill the void that trauma can create, and help you manage and physical symptoms and sleeplessness, so that you can gradually transition beyond the loss and shock to welcome life and family and friends back in, and to minimise the use of substance, and enhance self-care and awareness.
What is post-traumatic stress disorder? This serious ongoing condition may develop after the experience of a traumatic event. As discussed above, the response to any traumatic event is influenced by a great many factors, so that not everyone who experiences the same event will respond in the same way. Not everyone who experiences trauma will develop Post Traumatic Stress. For the few who do, who can not seem to digest/break down/absorb the trauma and who seem to get stuck in the symptoms rather than being able to grieve, accommodate and transition back to their usual selves within three to four weeks, help is at hand. There are several effective psychological therapies which help in resolving even those persistent post-traumatic symptoms
Don’t suffer alone. Make the choice to make the change; I can help you make tomorrow better. Decide today to make the call and start the journey back to yourself.
