What is Trauma?
Life is hard, and nearly everyone is affected by trauma in some way during their lifetime.
Trauma can be categorized as “single incident” or “complex”
Single incident traumas
can occur when a person experiences a natural disaster, being a victim of a violent crime, surviving a potentially life threatening accident or near-death experience, or being exposed to death, injury, or violence on the job (such as experienced by law enforcement and first responders). A person can experience multiple single incident traumas.
Complex trauma
is typically relational at its core beginning in childhood, often due to the absence of or abuse by primary caregivers. It is repeated and ongoing and difficult or impossible to escape. It has developmental consequences and affects brain development, having consequences that extend into adulthood and include trouble regulating emotions, memory and concentration impairments, and trouble engaging in secure and healthy relationships.
Trauma is a response that happens when you experience something that exceeds the available resources you have to cope. It includes things that happened that should not have, or things that should have happened, but didn’t.
Trauma survival responses may include feelings of shame, anxiety, mood disruption, sleep disruption, isolation or avoidance of people or places or situations, impulsivity, irritability, aggressiveness, relationship problems, or lack of safety in your relationships, in the world around you, and even within yourself.