When we experience a trauma, it can be difficult to let go of the pain or fear we felt in that moment. People around us may not understand why we aren’t “over it” yet. The reality is that the aftermath of trauma is easy to navigate. We encounter triggers, and we re-live the pain and it can feel as if there’s nothing we can do. Fortunately, there are ways to cope with and manage all the conflicting and difficult responses and emotions that come up in the aftermath of trauma. This week on The Stress Less Show, I brought Therapist & Owner of The Wellness Collective, Danielle Massi, back to share some tips to manage our trauma responses.
You may remember Danielle’s story from our previous episode on managing anxiety. As a cancer survivor, Danielle has a unique perspective on the mind-body connection and how we can heal in all areas of life. Through her journey overcoming cancer, Danielle found herself experiencing her own traumatic experience after an extremely painful and lengthy hysterectomy.
“By the time they finally were able to release me and let me go to a hospital room, my parents who were there during my surgery had left. At the point where I needed my parents the most - especially my mommy because attachment reasons we really look for our attachment figures in moments of extreme pain. She was gone. And so I had an immediate trauma response in my body.”
Danielle’s experience is particularly important because it highlights that trauma goes far beyond the stereotypical ideas we have about what trauma means and looks like. Danielle stresses that there are two different kinds of trauma and both have deep impacts on our mind and body.
“When our response to a trauma is really overwhelming and we can't work our way out of it, it's considered a big T trauma. Little T trauma is trauma that we engage in pretty regularly and we don't recognize the fact that they are traumatic and have an intense effect on our body.”
Whether you have experienced an overwhelming trauma or a more frequent or socially normalized trauma, Danielle’s tips are here for you to use to start investigating the responses in your body in the aftermath of trauma.
Tip #1: Know the underlying cause of your trauma
In the aftermath of trauma, the biggest tip Danielle has to move forward is to first identify the underlying cause of our trauma. What we experience as trauma and why is not as obvious as we might think. When we experience major traumatic events, it might be easy to identify the causes, but in Danielle’s case, for example, finding out what caused a trauma response requires more thought.
“Waking up and not finding someone there is sad, but it's not necessarily something that would cause trauma. But if we look a layer deeper, we have this biological attachment need to our primary caregivers in the moments where we are at our lowest we look to them to provide safety. So for me not having that secure attachment figure to go to was traumatic.”
Working with a therapist can help in investigating these causes, but it is an important step in our healing from trauma. The causes can reveal where our trauma responses are being triggered in our lives so we can start to counteract their effect on us.
Tip #2: Understand what it looks like in your body
After discovering the causes and triggers for our trauma, the next step Danielle stresses is to look at what is happening in your body when your trauma responses are triggered. We often understand what physical symptoms come with major traumatic events such as in soldiers in war, however, Danielle notes that there are a lot more symptoms of trauma that are related to less-discussed traumas in our society.
“[Trauma responses] might look like you know sweating, having a meltdown, screaming at someone, but Little T trauma or even big T trauma that is really normalized in our society like rape or just having a sexual encounter that goes really poorly is not discussed.”
One of the most common overlooked responses to trauma, Danielle notes, is disassociation.
“Dissociation is a trauma response, but we don't call it that. Knowing that when we dissociate when we kind of float outside of our bodies [we’re experiencing a] trauma response is extremely important.”
Dissociation can occur as a result of many different traumatic experiences. We may have had a traumatic sexual experience or even a traumatic encounter with a screaming boss or coworker. Identifying when we experience a physical symptom such as dissociation is an important key to pinpoint our specific triggers for our trauma so we can move forward.
Tip #3: Learn to manage it every single day
Once we have brought awareness to all the different types of trauma responses we experience and their triggers, Danielle’s last tip is to find ways to manage our trauma responses every day. These triggers and responses can come up at any time and when they do, our body goes into a heightened state of fight or flight.
“We want to shut off our fight or flight response and activate rest and digest because our body is essentially in fight or flight mode when we experience trauma.”
A great way to interrupt and move out of fight or flight mode, Danielle mentions, is to try box breathing. To box breathe, breath in for four seconds, hold your breath in for another four seconds, breathe out for another four seconds, and wait to breathe in again for another four seconds. Repeat this pattern as soon as you notice the symptoms of fight or flight dissipate.
Whenever we notice our trauma triggers and responses, we can use box breathing as a way to quickly prevent trauma from impacting our lives in the aftermath. All it takes is awareness and understanding of what is happening in our bodies and minds.
“The more we understand our triggers, the more we can get ahead of it or even staying away from instances where it might occur”
If you are interested in working with a therapist or would like to learn more about The Wellness Collective, you can visit their website here.