How Trauma Can Impact You, and How to Overcome It

In part 1 of this series, I discussed and reframed what someone with a relational trauma history looks like.

In today’s post, I want to explore how the manifestations of and constellations of trauma symptoms are as varied, complex, and unique as the individuals who endure the trauma and what steps can be taken to heal from it.

To begin, I want to point out that those with trauma histories may not have memories, but rather only sensations that seem unrelated to any source of trauma.

Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all definition of trauma to see yourself in.

But, there are symptoms and signals you can be curious about that may help you reflect on whether or not you come from a trauma history.

Common signals and symptoms of trauma may include:

• Depression and or anxiety (including generalized anxiety)
• Irritability and being very short-tempered
• Loss of interest in things that used to bring you pleasure, or in life itself
• Numbing through substances and behaviors
• Trouble concentrating
• Insomnia and challenges sleeping (including nightmares)
• Feeling emotionally flooded and overwhelmed easily
• An inability to visualize a future (let alone a positive future)
• Hopelessness and despair
• Shame, a sense that you’re worthless
• Few or no memories, feeling like your childhood is a fog or a big blank
• Hypervigilance and mistrust
• Body symptoms such as aches, pains, headaches
• Substance abuse and eating disorders
• Self-harming or destructive behaviors
• Feeling like you have no true self, like you don’t know who you really are*

If you identify with having a trauma history, particularly of the complex and relational kind (trauma rooted in painful enduring conditions), there are many options for getting and receiving help.

We have nearly 40 years of second-wave work thanks to giants of the field like Judith Herman, MD, Pat Ogden, Ph.D., Bessel Van der Kolk, MD, and Peter Levine, Ph.D., among others; and research is providing us with more information and additional trauma treatment interventions as time progresses.

For now, though, the two most effective tools for relational trauma recovery work that we have are psychotherapy and EMDR therapy.

Psychotherapy—particularly with a trauma-informed licensed mental health professional—is a wonderful treatment tool, particularly for those who experienced trauma in the context of an early relationship and who, for their recovery, may need reparative relationship experiences.

There’s also a growing body of research that EMDR therapy, one of the two evidence-based modalities that the World Health Organization recognizes as efficacious for treating PTSD, is a wonderful tool to complement talk therapy in the treatment of complex relational trauma.

Regardless of how you decide to do the healing work, recognize this:

Trauma is not just something that happens in single, isolated, and terrible events.

Trauma can be something that arises from recurring, painful relational experiences early in life.

And, you can be high-functioning and still come from a traumatic background.

Your life can look amazing on paper and you can still be suffering inwardly.

Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

What’s important, though, is that you don’t dismiss your personal history or circumstances as unworthy of being deemed “traumatic” because of “how good you had it or how good your life looks now.”

Trauma is indiscriminate in who and how it impacts.

And if you’d like additional support on your trauma recovery journey, please consider following this blog on Psychology Today and using the directory to seek out a skilled mental health professional near you.