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Key points
- Traumatic experiences can disrupt the psychological and biological systems required for us to function normally.
- When your brain senses that fight-or-flight is to no avail, you may go into a state of surrender, or "freezing."
- Those who seek to help a survivor by listening to their painful experiences may themselves experience trauma symptoms.
"Trauma" is an umbrella term covering a plethora of phenomena: being a rape survivor; losing a loved one to death; having suffered childhood sexual, physical, or psychological abuse; returning from war without most of your battalion; being convicted of a crime you didn't commit; suffering from a terminal illness; being the victim of workplace bullying; witnessing a traumatic accident; losing custody of your children; or experiencing the empty nest syndrome, among many other kinds.3,4,6
The minor setbacks we experience almost on a daily basis are not traumas. Waking up to a dead car battery, being stuck in traffic for hours, or being stuck in pouring rain without an umbrella are examples of everyday setbacks that do not count as traumatic events.
As psychiatrist Judith Lewis Herman has argued in her pioneering work on trauma, "traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they occur rarely, but rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations to life" (Ch. 2).
Although people experience trauma differently, what all traumatic experiences have in common is their tendency to disrupt the psychological and biological systems required to function normally.1,2,4,6
Not all trauma experiences have the same components. But the following eight are well documented.4
1. Hyperarousal
Trauma is the experience of a serious threat to yourself or a loved one. When we undergo a traumatic event, we tend to experience shock, terror, catastrophe, powerlessness, and helplessness.2,4
Through evolution, our species has learned to respond to danger by increasing activity in the sympathetic nervous system. This causes the heartbeat to go up, breathing to increase, and sugar to be released into your bloodstream. This state of arousal is also known as the flight-or-fight response.
The surplus oxygen and sugar provide max fuel to your muscles, making you well equipped for fighting or escaping dangers. Once you are out of danger, your brain normally shuts down the hyperactivity.
When you undergo a traumatic event, however, your body does not shut down the hyperactivity. Although you may try to fight or escape, say, a mugger, burglar, or rapist, our trauma responses are typically nothing like our ordinary responses to danger. Overwhelmed and confused, your brain keeps up the hyperactivity.
2. Surrender
When your brain senses that fight-or-flight is to no avail, you may go into a state of surrender.2,4,6 While your physiological arousal system is on high alert, your brain inhibits your ability to act on the bodily arousal.2,4 This state—also observed in nonhuman animals—is also known as "freezing."
In her work on trauma, Herman describes two rape survivors' experiences of this state of surrender4: "'Did you ever see a rabbit stuck in the glare of your headlights when you were going down a road at night. Transfixed—like it knew it was going to get it—that’s what happened.' In the words of another rape survivor, 'I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed...like a rag doll'" (Ch. 2).
3. Flashbacks and Nightmares
Even after the danger or shock has abated some, your brain is still on high alert, causing you to relive the traumatic event over and over again.1,2,4,6
Regularly reliving a trauma prevents you from functioning normally. Just as you think things may be back to usual, the traumatic event recurs in the form of a flashback, interrupting your activities.
Even the smallest trigger can cause you to lose control, and you once again experience shock, terror, catastrophe, powerlessness, and helplessness.
Your sleep is likely interrupted by nightmares of the trauma, or you may wake up and for a moment wishfully think the traumatic event never really happened.
4. Bizarre Memories
Normally, when the brain encodes episodic and autobiographical memories, it encodes them in a linear, narrative format.
Trauma memories, by contrast, are encoded in fragments with certain aspects of the traumatic event being encoded down to the finest detail, while other aspects are completely ignored.2,4,6
Your inability to recall certain details of traumatic events is also known as "posttraumatic amnesia." It's a kind of compartmentalizing, where your painful experiences are split off from your ordinary experiences.
5. Religious, Superstitious, or Magical Thinking
People who undergo traumatic events sometimes find comfort in religious, superstitious, or magical thinking.2,4,6 Formerly nonreligious parents who lose a child may come to believe that God had a greater plan for their dead child.
Some trauma survivors become convinced that there were warning signs that could have made them avoid the traumatic event if only they had taken them seriously. This thinking pattern may aggravate survivors' feelings of regret, sadness, anger, and guilt.
Yet others who have lost a loved one refuse to alter surroundings or routines because they feel keeping things unaltered enables them to have a spiritual connection with their loved ones.
6. Avoidance and Alienation
On the flip side, trauma survivors may avoid any situation reminiscent of the past trauma. They may also avoid contact with family and friends.
Some rape and abuse victims cope in part by allowing themselves to experience rage and murderous revenge fantasies.1,4,6 While these feelings and thoughts are perfectly normal, trauma victims prone to violent thoughts may be afraid of what they'll do if they are around other people.
7. Self-Eradication
Undergoing a traumatic event can eradicate your former self.3,4,5 This is because our selves are partially constituted by our relationships.5 As traumatic events often directly or indirectly impair our relationships, trauma can change who we are.
Part of the healing process may consist of gradually reconstituting our self—creating our self anew—within the context of the relationships that remain.4,5
8. Vicarious Traumatization
A rarely discussed component of trauma is its contagious nature.3,4
Friends and family who seek to help a survivor by listening to their painful experiences may themselves begin to experience symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder.
As Herman reports in her trauma work, vicarious traumatization may result in the vicarious survivor avoiding situations reminiscent of the trauma, being triggered by reminders of the trauma, and having difficulties connecting with and trusting others.4
References
1. Brogaard, B. (2020). Hatred: Understanding Our Most Dangerous Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. Brogaard, B. (2015). On Romantic Love. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3. Brogaard, B. & Slote, M. On Respect and Disrespect: A Broad Perspective. In Press.
4. Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. New York: Basic Books.
5. Miller, S. C. (2022) Toward a relational theory of harm: on the ethical implications of childhood psychological abuse. Journal of Global Ethics, 18(1), 15-31, DOI: 10.1080/17449626.2022.2053562
6. Spinazzola, J., Hodgdon, H., Liang, L.-J., Ford, J.D., Layne, C.M., Pynoos, R, Briggs, E. C., Stolbach, B., & Kisiel, C. (2014). Unseen Wounds: The Contribution of Psychological Maltreatment to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Risks and Outcomes. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 6(S1): S18–S28.
