Many people associate trauma with a single traumatic event, like a serious injury or accident, a health emergency, loss or grief from the death of a loved one, or witnessing a tragedy. These events can definitely cause trauma, but trauma can also develop gradually over time. In some cases, people don’t realize it’s happening.
Past trauma can affect your mental health right now, even if the connection isn’t obvious. Let’s discuss various types and sources of trauma, how it can show up later, and the type of support that can help you move past trauma.
Common Types and Sources of Trauma
Trauma can be ongoing, layered, or quietly experienced over many weeks, months, or years. In many cases, people might wonder why they feel stressed, anxious, or depressed because they don’t connect their feelings with something negative that happened in the past.
Someone dealing with violence, abuse, neglect, discrimination, or substance use, whether directly or as an observer, can feel the effects of living in such an unsafe, unhealthy environment.
Children living with constant instability and uncertainty due to parents fighting at home, food insecurity, poverty, and other circumstances may not feel safe later in life because of these experiences.
Law enforcement, healthcare workers, first responders, and military often feel the impact of trauma because of their direct involvement with stressful, emotional situations.
How Trauma Resurfaces Later in Life
Trauma can be felt many months or years after traumatic experiences happened. Common symptoms of mental health disorders apply to trauma, like persistent feelings of anxiety, hopelessness, withdrawal from relationships, difficulty sleeping, and mood swings.
If you’ve experienced trauma, you might find yourself constantly looking around to make sure nothing dangerous is nearby. You could feel on edge and become easily startled in seemingly safe settings.
You may have vivid flashbacks or nightmares about traumatic experiences that make it feel like they just happened. Trusting people can be difficult. You might even notice physical pain and fatigue caused by the heavy weight of trauma.
Finding Support and Healing
Dealing with trauma isn’t as simple as putting it out of your mind or trying to forget. Counseling, coping skills, support groups, and other mental health services and tools can help you process traumatic experiences, respond constructively, and build feelings of safety and trust.
More specifically, trauma-informed care recognizes the impact of your lived traumatic experiences on your behaviors, feelings, and choices. The focus is on what happened to you, not what’s wrong with you. This approach emphasizes safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration, and empowerment to allow for true healing, not temporary relief.
If you or a loved one could be feeling the effects of past trauma, Oaks Integrated Care can help. We’ve fully integrated trauma-informed care into our culture and every stage of client interaction and treatment. To schedule an appointment, contact us by calling 1-800-963-3377.
