Trauma treatment
Are you tired of people telling you to just “get over it”?
Do you feel weighed down by your past?
Are you ready to face what happened to you so that you can avoid carrying it into your future?
Trauma therapy can help you heal from past wounds and feel hopeful about the life that lies ahead of you.
trauma:
“what happens to a person where there is either too much too soon, too much for too long, or not enough for too long”
Duros & Crowley
What is trauma?
Trauma is something that happens to you that deeply impacts the way you see yourself and the world around you.
While many people think of trauma as a major event that causes a huge disruption in one’s life, trauma can also happen when someone experiences an everyday occurrence of pain or suffering. Trauma symptoms can develop after a one-time event or a series of repeated experiences. In therapy, we distinguish different types of trauma as “big T Trauma” and “little T trauma.”
Examples of big T Traumas:
bad car or plane accident
sexual assault
domestic violence
natural disaster
witnessing or actively engaging in combat
school shooting
human trafficking
Big T Traumas are often more readily identifiable because of how overtly intense and life-threatening they are. These are events that anyone would find extremely distressing and frequently result in a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Examples of little T traumas:
legal trouble
feeling humiliated in front of others
relationship issues or a messy breakup
unplanned major life changes - abruptly moving, getting fired from a job, unexpected expenses
loss of a loved one
childbirth or loss of an unborn child
Little T traumas can include virtually any adverse life experience that people deal with on a daily basis. These events aren’t necessarily traumatic for everyone who experiences them, but they have the potential to create lasting impacts for some.
Despite the fact that little T traumas may seem objectively less intense, they can be just as difficult to cope with as Big T traumas and require the same amount of attention in therapy.
do I have ptsd?
To be clear, not everyone who experiences trauma will be diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but the signs and symptoms of each definitely overlap. The main difference is that in order to be diagnosed with PTSD, a person must have directly experienced, witnessed, or learned that a close friend or family member experienced a trauma. It’s also possible to have been exposed to a trauma through one’s job (ie. first responders, ER doctors, nurses).
Aside from this distinction, here are some common symptoms of trauma and PTSD:
Hyper-arousal - You might notice that you’re on guard more often than not. You may have a heightened startle reaction, jumping out of your skin at every little thing. You may also feel hyper-vigilant or overly aware of your surroundings, as if scanning for danger constantly. This feeling of being constantly on guard will likely make it difficult to concentrate on work or fall asleep at night. It can also lead to increased feelings of irritability and aggression.
Avoidance - You might notice that you avoid reminders of the trauma at all costs. If the trauma happened in a specific location, you might avoid going there. Similarly, if you experience thoughts or feelings that remind you of the trauma, you might find yourself using food, alcohol, drugs or other means of external avoidance to ignore or block out these reminders. You might also find yourself shutting down when triggered by conversations or interactions with others.
Re-experiencing - You might feel like your trauma won’t stop playing over and over in your head. Re-experiencing your trauma can happen in the form of nightmares, intrusive thoughts related to the trauma or flashbacks. You might even re-experience physical sensations that were present at the time of the trauma, like specific smells or bodily sensations.
When trauma happens, your sense of physical or emotional safety is impacted. As a result, your brain responds by developing coping strategies to keep you safe in the future. Often, this includes finding ways to numb out or shut off your emotions completely. While strategies like drinking, using drugs, avoiding trauma triggers or just shutting down completely may be effective in helping you feel safer because you’re not re-experiencing your trauma, these behaviors can end up creating more issues for you to deal with in the long-term.
How does trauma therapy help?
Effective trauma therapy helps you learn healthier ways of coping with your trauma that allow you to re-establish a sense of safety in your mind and body. In my St. Louis therapy practice, I can help you to:
understand the way trauma has impacted your brain
explore ways trauma has impacted your life story and your beliefs about yourself
identify trauma triggers and how they affect your emotional experience in the present
learn self-soothing strategies that can help your nervous system regulate after a highly emotional experience
recognize your strength and resilience in surviving and eventually moving past your trauma
restore hope for your future & more!
One type of trauma therapy I utilize is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Visit my EMDR page to learn more about this evidence-based trauma therapy technique.
“i am not a victim of my life
what i went through
pulled a warrior out of me
and it is my greatest honor to be her”
rupi kaur