Talking About Trauma...

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By Jen

Trauma is a strong negative experience that can be physical, emotional, psychological, sexual or anything that impacts the victim in a severely negative way. What could just be ‘unpleasant’ for one person could damage someone else for life. Because of this fact you must never say that someone has had it worse or better than someone else, or that someones trauma isn’t as valid as another. Trauma has awful effects on people. Trauma doesn’t simply ‘go away’ and by telling others to ‘get over it’ or ‘move on’, you are minimizing their pain.

Talking-about-trauma-pin - Trauma ia a strong negative physical, emotional, psychological, sexual experience, or any experience that impacts the victim in a severely negative way.

Personally, I have experienced various traumatic experiences from a young age that have lead me to develop PTSD and DID.

PTSD:

A collection of stress reaction to a seriously traumatic event. Symptoms of PTSD include flashbacks, tightened anxiety, fear and mistrust.

DID:

A dissociative disorder that occurs due to severe childhood trauma. DID sufferers have two or more distinct identities and experience many symptoms.

My trauma occurred between ages 6 and 13 meaning it lasted majority of my childhood years. I don’t discuss my trauma with anyone. No one knows the full extent of my experiences apart from my last psychologist and current psychologist. My mum doesn’t even know it all and she got small bits of information through my old psychologist as I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it.

Due to having DID the exact details and events of trauma are not something that I remember on a daily basis.

Sometimes I can go weeks/months without clear memories of the past events. Other times they are so clear that I can’t breathe. With DID patients, the mind is compartmentalised and these compartments are the alters in the system. Each alter is responsible for memories and experiences. Some hold the traumas that the host (person mainly in control of the body), can not live with day to day.

As you can imagine trauma isn’t a pleasant thing to talk about and can be impossible to talk about if you don’t even have the memories. When trauma or triggers are mentioned during conversation, flashbacks and dissociation may follow. This isn’t good for anyone as the sufferer is put in an awful situation of remembering traumatic events. the one asking about trauma isn’t getting answers anyway and all trust could be lost. It could be a question that you think you want to know but really it just complicates things.

If you ask someone about their trauma then you are putting so much pressure on them that they may not be able to handle it. Forcing memories to re-surface, possibly causing a panic attack or other mental health reaction, making the person doubt how valid they are. You risk possibly destroying your relationship with that person. If you really need to know what that person is going through, study to become a psychologist for year and get the correct qualifications. If you are asking to try and help that person then just show them that you care and are there for them instead of making them relive bad experiences.

In summary, DO NOT ask people about their trauma.

Nothing good will come from that situation but a lot of damage can be done. I don’t talk about my trauma because it is hard to think about and sometimes can seem impossible to remember. All trauma is valid and no one is better or worse off than anyone else.

I hope this post was helpful and that you have an amazing day.

Jen xx

(I am not a professional)

Reproduced with permission, originally posted here: diaryofapsychoblog.wixsite.com