Dr. Shaili Jain on Trauma

Trauma can be caused by combat, violence, or seeing an event as a bystander. Traumatized people are also notoriously hard to help since the last thing they wanna do is talk about their trauma. Because of this, it is surely important for the victims to be willing to process their trauma. However, again, this is easier said than done since the core of the trauma is mistrust with people. It also can be hard if the victims themselves cannot identify their trauma as they may have downplayed it as "normal".

Because of how much trauma disrupts how victims function daily and manage their relationships, trauma should be taken seriously. Because of the gravity of the problem, it pays to listen to people and their struggles and understand them more from there. Being there and listening to the victims is important because it lets them know that they are not alone. However, listening can also take a ton of work since trauma victims are not very willing to talk about their traumatic experiences. Given this, people who want to support and listen to the victims should act more as companions in the victims’ lives, as part of their team and not imposing anything on them. In this relationship, it has to be more of the victim leading the way, and the people trying help by just being supportive.

However, it must also be noted that stability (like a stable job or home) is first needed before victims can face their emotional issues. Once the victim is stable and does not need to worry about surviving for the day, that’s when they can take their time talking about more sensitive areas of their life. Clinically, an event counts as traumatic when it is a life-threatening event or the victim feels that their safety is being compromised. However, some victims may not know if some of their memories count as they frequently downplay the event as a defense mechanism. This downplaying is done because victims want to be numb to those memories. Therefore, to identify if an event is traumatic without it being downplayed, the victim can try imagining it happening to someone else to eliminate the bias. Another indicator of PTSD is the victim reliving the moment over and over again, which may cause sleep disruptions. These memories are often intrusive which means these memories were not chosen to be recalled and they just get recalled. When reliving these moments, there are often flashbacks where the person relives the traumatic events all over again. Sometimes, reliving the past traumatic experience can happen through nightmares. One indicator that the flashbacks are happening is when there is a sudden shift in moods of anger or fear. Because of the tendency to relive the trauma, PTSD is also indicated by people restricting their lives such that they do not get reminded of anything about their trauma. Here, people try their best to control every part of their lives until they’re exhausted. This can also be shown by victims isolating themselves and believing they deserve isolation and torment.

These things happen with people with PTSD because of impairments in the brain. First, the hippocampus which is in-charge of building memories is often smaller. This causes some parts of the traumatic event to be blurry for the victim but the other parts so clear that they're constantly relived. Second, the amygdala, which is responsible for the emotion of fear and anger, is overactive. This causes the body to suddenly feel like it’s in danger even though there’s no danger at all. Third, the frontal lobe which helps us with judgment, planning, executing, and thinking logically is under-active. This makes victims act before they think, causing victims to do impulsive things to distract themselves from traumatic memories. These impulsive actions can be in the form of reenactment which makes victims feel alive momentarily with the familiar but then feel guilt and shame.

Then, victims need to take control of their lives and take away control from their trauma. To do this, it may be good to keep away from trauma cues that remind someone of the trauma. This is key because just one cue can trigger the entire fear network and make someone relive their traumatic experiences. It is also important for victims to be able to speak about their trauma and be accepted. If this does not happen then trauma thrives. And so it’s a big problem when others call the victims liars or when others do not listen. However, listening and being empathetic may be easier said than done as victims who are hurt may hurt other people. Thus, people also have to learn to be more empathetic with the people who caused trauma as they may have also had trauma. These people deserve consequences but they also need to be understood and helped. They may have caused trauma themselves to others because they thought that bad things don’t happen to good people so they must be bad people. However, as tough as listening may be, it is important, as not listening creates a lack of safe-space for victims which then never fixes their trauma. Sadly, some people are forced to live without a safe-space and never tell anyone since they depend on the people who abused them. This is why it’s great that now people are more open to listening to others and know the value of listening. Also thankfully, some victims do not fear seeking help as they think their trauma is the worst thing that can ever happen to them. It also helps some victims to think that they are in a world of abundance and they don’t have to go on survival mode all the time so they can reach out to people for help. For victims to go to great lengths to help themselves however, it all starts with easier steps like getting better sleep.

Source: Dr. Shaili Jain