Life's traumas not always make you a stronger person

Trauma is an event that invokes so much fear that the human mind and body cannot process it. It's nothing to do with being weak. No one asks to be traumatized. There are, however, a few factors that affect your chances of being “traumatized.” For example, it's proven that children are much more likely to become traumatized. They simply don't have the tools that adults do. The younger you are, the more vulnerable you are to developing trauma symptoms.

Social support is another big one. We need to be able to turn to someone we trust and receive support from them. We need to be able to rebuild that sense of safety that we lost when the trauma occurred. This is why child abuse survivors often go on to develop PTSD. They are not only young, but also often lack any sort of social safety. If their parents are abusing them who are they to turn to? You know?

There are also genetic factors of course. Those with larger amygdala (emotion/fear center) are more likely to be intensely affected by trauma. The type of trauma also affects the likelihood of being traumatized. Interpersonal trauma affects a person's worldview and sense of safety differently than a natural disaster. Long term trauma also tends to have a much greater affect on the human psyche.

Overall, I think weak is the wrong word to use. You cannot imagine a situation without having lived the same life as the traumatized person. Trauma doesn't exist in a vacuum. It all comes down to the tools we have available to process the traumatic event that occurred. If for whatever reason our toolbox is empty, we may be unable to process the event. It'll become stuck in our brains and bodies and we become “traumatized.” Not everyone goes on the develop PTSD that is traumatized. One thing that's certain is that no one is the same after experiencing trauma.

The saying does say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger but sometimes we can’t help but think about the traumatic experience that we’ve encountered so to answer your question. Yes , traumatic experiences can make you stronger with counseling, meditation and other various ways ; but not everyone is lucky enough to recover from a traumatic experience you may even suffer from anxiety a few years before returning stronger. Many people are ruined by them. They carry the emotional torment throughout their entire lives and some take their own lives. A few become stronger after they get help or counseling. Some learn how to overcome the traumatic experience and learn to be a survivor or they learn to trust again.

I was so traumatised. You really feel that when someone or any experience breaks you into pieces from inside. I felt that so strongly. I felt like I was robbed. My self esteem was bashed. My inner peace and my pacifist nature came down. I never felt like it was me! I fought battles in my mind everyday. It was so frustrating and damaging to my inner self and I realised it so lately. It haunts me still. Traumatic experiences haunt you and take a lot of time to heal.

Some people are really ugly and feed your mind with their ugliness. I was very unfortunate to deal with such a person. The trauma is still there. But I am now coming to myself. I consider myself strong because I am still here to face my life no matter how many traumas I come across. To keep my mind at ease I do reading(books) and put efforts to improve my mental health. I try to eat good home cooked food as it helps me feel better. I also lost weight. And still exercise and keep a check on how I feel everyday. It's so important to ask yourself that everyday.

Social is a good platform to connect with everyone. It's working for me. I want to get better everyday and heal completely. Love and power to everyone who is dealing with this. I hope you get better and smile back at the world again. If you are able to take the trauma and actually deal with it and work thru it in order to be smarter and stronger moving forward it will make you stronger in that sense. If you are able to teach your children or show them something beneficial fro. Your experience the you can see the siler lining. Ultimately alot of people aren't able to do that and they end up being unhealthy until they're actually forced to deal with the trauma.

The answer is we don’t fully understand why people going through the same or very similar trauma have different outcomes. We see this unexplained difference when looking at people who are side-by-side in combat and from siblings who are both raised by the same abusive parent. First, before we go any further, let’s be very clear that getting PTSD has nothing to do with weakness. In fact, such people are nearly always examples of extreme courage.

What do we know about why some people develop PTSD and others do not after being exposed to seemingly similar experiences? Well, one thing we know is that it has to do, in many cases, with resilience. People who have a greater degree of resilience seem to survive traumatic events with less negative consequences. So, what causes resilience? People tend to be more resilient for a variety of reasons. The most important predictor of resilience is the presence of close, supportive family and friends. People who feel loved, cared for and protected, survive trauma better than those who don’t.

So, how to explain people who don’t have close loving relationships and still seem to avoid PTSD? Some people can survive PTSD by just knowing that, at some point in the past, someone cared about them. This moment of caring, can create an inner strength that helps people survive. I’ve met siblings who have both gone through a traumatic event in their childhood, living with neglectful, absent and abusive parents. One sibling had very clear signs of PTSD; the other did not. What was the difference?

The difference was that one sibling pursued sports and was shown great kindness by a coach, who acted as a surrogate parent, teaching the child about life, sharing wisdom and providing encouragement, rules and boundaries. This coach caused this child to believe in himself. When a person feels loved, they learn to love themselves and this can translate into resiliency. This is why it’s so important for extended family members, coaches, teachers, clergy, neighbors and others to keep an eye our for troubled youth and give them the encouragement and love they need. Even small amounts can mean a huge difference.

I was reading a long time ago about how children who have traumatic experiences tend to fall into an 80/20 rule. 80% internalise it and it causes damage, 20% project their anger on the world. Hence some of the most famous and infamous leaders of the world had childhood trauma. But remember, being a good, well rounded person isn't necessarily the best option. It wholly depends where and when you live. In some societies even now, you'll have a better chance of surviving if you are not well balanced and you do have issues driving you. Cheers!