How do you know if you have trauma? #AskATherapist - Mended Light

How do you know if you have trauma? #AskATherapist - Mended Light //

One thing I get asked as a therapist all the time is "How do you know if you ve been traumatized?" or "How do I know if I have trauma?"

That's a fair question and in today's Ask a Therapist video, I'm going to give you my keys to answering those questions as well as better understanding of the process of healing from trauma...

If you're looking for more goodness - you can also check out " what is the body's natural reaction to trauma" found here:

[seaborgium]

Oh boy, you cover betrayal trauma & Emotional/mental/spiritual trauma. Cool. Not a lot of people are willing to name emotional abuse, and non-physical abuse as trauma.

[Neis]

While I have yet to have worked with professional therapy, just understanding what is specifically happening to me objectively feels like a form of therapy itself. So thank you. I feel like I can understand what I am facing and know how to tackle my problems.

[sarahfilipova]

My trauma response is very high functioning. As an immigrant daughter from a deeply traumatized mother, I learned to hide the pain in order to survive and not bother others. So most of the time the outside world doesn't even know that I am responding to a trauma trigger, which is dangerous and lonely. This is why talking about it helps a lot. Feeling connected gives me a better understanding of my own pain. So do your videos. Thank you from Vienna :-)

[kaljackal]

It would be cool to see an episode on C-PTSD, and how it differs.

[doodlemaster]

One source of trauma I find a lot of people have experienced (including myself) is the struggle of helping a friend who is suicidal. Particularly in highschool, I was not ready/ qualified to help someone in that situation. But, because I was their friend, I felt that it was my duty to be there for them. This lead me down a long stressful path that gave me heart palpitations, prolonged fatigue, and an anxiety disorder. I don't blame my friend for struggling with depression, but it's insane to me how many other people seem to be/ have been in my shoes at such a young age.

[PadmeP]

I have difficulty validating my condition in a society that doesn't seem to think I've been through enough "trauma" to warrant how it has affected me. On the one hand I can rationailse that not everyone who goes through the same trauma develops PTSD and that being affected by trauma doesn't make someone weaker or less worthy than someone who doesn't develop it. But in reality I do feel judged, guilty and punished for not being able to cope with things the same way other people.

[jessicawindhaus]

It's really nice to hear folks include abuse or betrayal, etc. in their description of trauma. Normally, you hear the list end at experiencing a life-threatening situation or a death. What happened to me was neither but it was terrifying for many reasons and happened extremely suddenly, but I still have PTSD. Thank you for shining a light on this and being more inclusive with your language.

[AlbertWesker]

I'm still working on my betrayal trauma as well as gas lighting, some things that have helped me are slowly trusting people with 'small' items (asking someone to get me something from a store when the friend is already there, me changing meet up locations, asking for help with something that I could do on my own). I am at a point that I'm ok with telling people that I have trust problems, and how it might manifest. I do know I still have work to do, but I already feel better.

If anyone that reads this is also experiencing any form of trauma no matter what stage your in try to understand that you are not alone even if it might feel like it right now, and you might feel like you 'hit a wall', that's ok you heal at your pace, one step forward is a victory even if its one step a day. You got this.

[sfowler]

I've had several traumatic things in my past. A huge thing in my past that was traumatic was when I was in youth group, it started out great, it was "safe, " but then things changed. We had two sisters come into our group and disrupt everything and then the group no longer was a safe place. They got all the guys in the group to follow them and went out of their way to exclude me from everything. The more I tried to be a part of the group, the more they made sure I knew that I was not wanted. They went as far as to hide at the playground, in the dark, during a youth camping trip and say "maybe if we're quiet, she'll know she's not wanted and go away." Growing up I always thought church was a safe place, but after this experience, I began to doubt that church was safe anymore and that I couldn't trust anyone at the church. Thankfully, my way of healing was by going to a new church, one I grew up in, where people remembered me and cared about me and did everything they could to try and include me. This was healing for me. Though I still struggle at times being at church, I have that support group that allows me to feel safe there.

[alishaJRR]

I'd be interested to hear an episode on spiritual abuse.

[pug_frost]

When my husband and I got custody of my brother in law we put him in therapy pretty soon after. They had me in the room and asked him a list of questions to see if he had PTSD when he first started. He didn't. But I answered the questions in my head and at the end of it, I was thinking maybe I should talk to a therapist as I had answered yes to everything they asked him. I was diagnosed about a year later with PTSD and MDD. It got so bad I ended up having to drop out of college. I can't hold a job and I'm not very useful around the house. I love watching videos like this. it's so validating. I grew up around people who didn't see my situation as abusive or who simply didn't believe me when I told them it was happening. I was very gaslighted about what I was experiencing and how I felt about it. I was told that I was and am just dramatic. But I know I have PTSD, in fact, I believe it is CPTSD but my therapist said she could only diagnose PTSD at the time, something about it not being a real diagnosis yet? (I can't remember) But it's nice hearing you say what I feel just how I feel it and explaining that it is PTSD. I don't think I can hear it enough. I'm not crazy. Something has been wrong with me and I tried very hard to get help for it for years and no one would listen to me. Thank you for making these videos.

[abbygilbert]

I've had some trauma experiences that I largely ignored for years. I thought that hypervigilance and anger outbursts and fear was a part of my personality. Only recently have I begun to link those behaviors with those events.
I'm so ready to heal.

[samuelpeixeiro]

For myself I think it has to do with family trauma. Everytime there is a scene in a movie about family values, about sticking together I just burst in tears. I cope with it mostly by avoiding family situations. It's as if I do experience trauma, but can't really tell what event or events are related to the trauma.

[wingedone]

I still have a long way to go, but one thing I've noticed helps me a lot is knowing that while I can't stop all bad things from happening, I can know what to do if they happen. I can develop knowledge and skills to employ in order to handle something difficult. So, it's like, "I can't keep traumatic events away, but I CAN handle them, I CAN diffuse them, I CAN reregulate myself afterwards."

[TamagoSenshi]

Finding out that my cat had suddenly and unexpectedly been put down while I was swimming (as I would do for most of my free time), when I hadn't even realised anything had been wrong with her health, made it really hard to be in contact with bodies of water, because I'd always go back to that moment and all I could feel was that shock and mind-numbing loss. It also compounded with my anxiety about losing people I was close to (many friends moved out of contact growing up) and so, any time I thought "they should be here by now, " "He should be awake by now, " I'd go into a kind of pseudo-grief until they were where they were "supposed" to be

[kathrynmmurders]

PTSD for me is the type where I'm aware of my surrounds and where I am, that it's not currently happening, but ALL of the memories of what happened come through and I can't shut them out. Honestly thank you for mentioning that PTSD isn't only dissociation. So many people in my life wouldn't listen to me about my episodes until it was finally confirmed by a therapist years later.

For anyone suffering, know that the episodes do pass. I know I'll likely continue getting them, and sometimes more often then others depending on where I am, or what entertainment I happen to be watching on TV, and especially who I'm around. But they do pass with enough time.

I just wish there was an easier way to breathe through mine.

[sofiamec]

I’ve had several traumas throughout my life, WOO! 🙃
Sexual abuse as a kid, later came rape, life stepped it up a bit clearly. Also physical abuse in relationships and cheating as well.
How do I handle it? I joke about it. Probably not the best or healthiest way. And I do think I might be trying to drink the pain away …which is also not healthy. I did start seeing a therapist though so, there’s that. Progress 👍🏽

[juliah]

Thank you for naming betrayal trauma. Nearly two years ago I moved with my husband and our two children to his home village far away from the city where we used to live. Three weeks after we moved in this house that was owned by his family he told me that he had met someone on a dating site and wanted to continue this. At first I tried to understand and said that I would not do that. He repIied full of contempt that I should pull myself together implying that otherwise I would not be a good mother and that showing emotions would be manipulative. I was completely shocked we had been together for 16 years and the person I was suddenly talking to was a completely different person.

During the following months he socially isolated me, tried to convince me that I was mentally ill, when I broke my leg he did hardly anything to support me and when I once lost the temper in such a situation while he was thinking aloud that he maybe never loved me and that I would be an unfit mother he informed the youth welfare office and his family and my mother that I was such a horrible person.

The reason why I stayed there was that apart from having a broken leg, here in Germany everyone has usually shared custody so that if you want to move you can only move without your children unless you get the consent of the other parent.

We are right now in the second custody trial he started, until August last year he refused to give back his keys and invaded on several occasions the home the children and I live in and violated my boundaries many times while claiming successfully to the officials that nothing happened.

Long story short I still suffer from intrusive memories so that I for example tear up in the middle of the supermarket. So far psychotherapy was not helpful since the therapist told me that trauma is limited to situations where you have a near death experience or at least a severe physical threat.

[EmoInu]

I have CPTSD. My most powerful coping tool came from Frank Herbert's Dune saga. It is the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear.
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear and I will permit it to pass over me and through me. When the fear is gone I will turn my mind's eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." Even in a full blown panic attack this litany helps me ground.

[hannahschell]

A few years ago I was hospitalized for an extended period of time. It wasn't life-threatening, but I was probably the scariest time in my life. After I got out I was terrified anytime I got any of my old symptoms, and I would've rather died than go back. But I would just tell myself to suck it up, because there were people who were much worse off than me. It took me well over a year to understand that what I had experienced in the hospital was trauma, and I was still dealing with the aftermath. I think a lot of times when we experience the aftereffects of trauma, we think we're not worthy of feeling them, because others have it worse. But trauma is trauma, and deserves to be recognized.