Impacts of Trauma

Trauma can have profound and wide-ranging effects on an individual's functioning, impacting various aspects of their life. Here are some common ways in which trauma can affect functioning:

Emotional Impact: Trauma often leads to intense and overwhelming emotions, including anxiety, depression, helplessness, anger, guilt, shame, and fear. These emotions can disrupt daily life and make it challenging to regulate mood.

Cognitive Functioning: Trauma can affect concentration, memory, and decision-making. Individuals may experience difficulties in focusing on tasks, recalling information, or making choices.

Interpersonal Relationships: Trauma can strain relationships, as individuals may struggle with trust, intimacy, and communication. The impact can extend to family, friends, and work relationships, affecting the ability to connect with others.

Physical Health: Chronic stress resulting from trauma can contribute to physical health issues, including headaches and gastrointestinal problems.

Sleep Disturbances: Trauma often disrupts sleep patterns, leading to difficulties falling asleep, staying asleep, or experiencing restful sleep. This can contribute to fatigue and exacerbate other symptoms.

Self-Esteem: Trauma may negatively impact self-esteem and self-worth. Individuals may develop negative beliefs about themselves, leading to feelings of inadequacy.

Behavioral Changes: Coping mechanisms developed in response to trauma, such as avoidance or self-destructive behaviors, can affect one’s daily functioning. These coping strategies may offer temporary relief but can be detrimental in the long run.

Occupational and Academic Functioning: Trauma can interfere with one's ability to perform well at work or in academic settings. Concentration difficulties, absenteeism, and challenges in meeting responsibilities may arise.

How can therapy be helpful?

When struggling with trauma, people often experience a fragmented sense of self and difficulties processing and organizing traumatic experiences. In therapy, therapists help clients create a cohesive and more balanced sense of self, where the trauma becomes integrated into one's life narrative without overwhelming daily functioning.

Individuals struggling with trauma also often find themselves overwhelmed by difficult and intense memories. While we cannot erase these painful memories, we can explore, process, and reorganize them to lessen their impact. A therapist once used a drawer metaphor to describe the reorganizing process of traumatic memories. Picture your mind as a set of internal organizing drawers. Traumatic memories often feel like a chaotic mess, as if we've forced them into a drawer that's not quite the right fit. This disorganization can lead to the drawer unexpectedly popping open, catching us off guard. In therapy, we delicately take these memories out, carefully organize them, and place them back in a way that feels more manageable. Now, you have the choice to open the drawer intentionally and explore those memories when you're ready, giving you a sense of control over the process.

At Defining Moments, our therapists are here to gently guide you to safely process and reorganize your experiences/memories. As people heal from trauma, they begin to notice some positive changes. They report feeling freer, feeling more comfortable discussing these experiences. They report a sense of closure, feeling that the trauma is now in the past rather than an ongoing presence in their current lives. Most importantly, they often experience a shift in perception, feeling empowered with a sense of choice and control over their memories and behaviors, rather than being reactive due to feeling attacked by their memories.

If you are ready to begin therapy for trauma, contact us here to book a free consultation with our therapist.