Trauma and the Nervous System
There are hundreds of books written about trauma and the many different aspects of trauma, and I would love to touch on it all; however, I am going to focus on how our nervous system is impacted by trauma and how this impacts our behaviors, thoughts, and beliefs about self. Simply defined, trauma is defined as any experience that creates feelings of overwhelmingness and/or an event that is perceived as life-threatening (https://onsiteworkshops.com/programs/healing-trauma/).
If we look at our history from an evolutionary perspective, our nervous systems were designed to fluctuate between a peaceful, calm state (parasympathetic) and the fight, flight, freeze, fawn state (sympathetic). When we have the ability to flex between these two states, our nervous system is regulated, or it’s working as it was designed to do in order to keep us alive. Our sympathetic nervous system gets activated when we perceive that there is a threat or danger in our environment, and this is really great, except for when this part of our nervous system perceives things as dangerous that aren’t actually unsafe for us.
So, for instance, when I am driving and I see the cars in front of me slam on their brakes, my sympathetic nervous system goes into action to help me respond to this potential danger. In the short amount of time I have to react, I can feel my heart start to race, my hands start to sweat, I can feel “butterflies” in my stomach, and my attention gets very focused on the cars ahead and what I need to do to stop my own vehicle in time to avoid hitting another car. If I am able to stop in time and don’t hit another vehicle, my sympathetic nervous system will deactivate after some time and my parasympathetic nervous system will activate again and I will return to a calm state.
However, let’s say I do hit another vehicle and I get injured. This experience would create feelings of overwhelm and could also be life threatening depending on the severity of the crash. If my nervous system is fluctuating through it’s different states as designed, I would go into a sympathetic response, and then once my injuries were attended to and I was home safe recovering, my parasympathetic nervous system would come back online. However, when my mind and body perceive something as traumatic, they get confused and my body stays stuck in the sympathetic state, long after the actual danger is gone.
To further demonstrate the impact of my body experiencing something traumatic, let’s say that I am sitting outside with my kids in the backyard and off in the distance I hear a car slamming on their brakes. My physical body is very safe and nowhere near the car that I hear. However, I hear the sound of the brakes (the same sound I heard in my accident) and a message is sent to my brain saying “danger, danger” and my heart starts to race, my hands start to sweat, I can feel “butterflies” in my stomach, and I feel like I want to run away. My body believes that it’s in the same danger that it was in when I had my accident, and it’s going into protection/survival mode.
Because of this car accident, I may have a lot of anxiety getting into a car or driving on a highway. I may believe that I am an unsafe driver that puts other people’s safety at risk. After the accident, I may become really anxious when I hear any type of noise associated with a vehicle. I may avoid leaving the house as much as I can so that I don’t have to worry about being in a vehicle. My relationships could suffer if I am too anxious to leave the house and connect with other people.
This is an example of a traumatic event in which another person didn’t cause or perpetuate the feelings of overwhelmingness or cause a life-threatening event. If my trauma is caused by another person, this adds some more complexity to the thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs about self that follow a traumatic event. I may start to believe that the world is unsafe, people are bad and can’t be trusted, I deserved to be hurt (physically or emotionally), and/or it’s my fault in some way. These thoughts and beliefs keep us stuck and can create relationship challenges making it difficult to connect with other people, and leave us feeling lonely and isolated.
When experiencing interpersonal trauma, my nervous system still responds in the same way that it did in my car accident. If someone else hurts me (physically or emotionally), my nervous system detects the danger and goes into survival mode. If I don’t experience a level of safety following this pain, my nervous system stays stuck in survival mode and I will continue to perceive other people as being a threat or dangerous in some way.
As humans, we are wired for connection. Trauma rewires us for protection, and not just protection from the people who hurt us, but protection from all people. Even the ones who try to love and support us.
If this is resonating with you, or you want to learn more about how your past traumas might be showing up in your life or in your relationships, please reach out for support, we are here to help.
Chelsie Ciminelli, LMSW-A