Trauma 2020
What is the impact of trauma on mental health?
Trauma is something that affects many people in the world today.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, trauma is back in the headlines, as both patients and healthcare workers begin their journey to physical and mental recovery.
What is trauma?
Trauma typically occurs as a result of an event that overwhelms an individual’s capacity to cope. Such events can cause or threaten to cause severe injury or death.
A traumatic event can range from bereavement to natural disasters, but they can have a common long-lasting negative impact on mental wellbeing, if left unchecked.
Survivors of trauma often relive a traumatic event throughout their lives. This ‘fight or flight’ reaction is a logical bodily response to the fear created by the initial crisis. Unfortunately, untreated trauma can seriously affect a person’s ability to move freely through life.
What are the symptoms of dealing with trauma?
There are many different signs that someone could be struggling to deal with trauma. These could include:
Insomnia
Poor concentration
Intrusive memories and thoughts
Isolation
Anxiety and panic
Self-doubt
Physical symptoms: racing heart, headaches, stomach aches
Development of mental disorders, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
How coping can help
Coping is key to mitigating the potentially psychologically damaging impact of trauma. While there are recommended ways to channel the pain of trauma into positive behaviour, everyone has their own coping mechanisms for dealing with traumatic events.
Some coping strategies are negative, withdrawing from the pain of emotion, using drugs or alcohol to escape negative memories.
Others can be positive, proactively seeking therapy to deal with a traumatic event or searching for a renewed sense of meaning and purpose, that can safely locate trauma as part of a ‘broader’ life narrative.
Trauma and Recovery
Trauma is part of the emotional terrain that many of us may have to navigate at some point in our lives.
It can impact how we view ourselves and others, how we regulate our emotions, how we view the world, and our mental wellbeing.
However, with the right interventions, and armed with the best knowledge, trauma need not hold us back. In time, trauma can even be seen positively, as a step on the path to change.
Getting Over the Emotional Trauma of COVID-19
The “3 E’s” of COVID-19 Trauma
One framework to help us understand this spectrum of responses is the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) model of trauma, also known as the 3 E’s:
Event
What constitutes a traumatic event? Everyone is different, so a traumatic event for one person might not be traumatic for another. Examples during the COVID-19 pandemic include:
Fear of infection
The isolation of sheltering in one place
Being diagnosed with COVID-19
Job loss or economic insecurity
The death of a loved one
Prolonged or extreme exposure to the trauma of others (common among first responders)
Experience
How do you experience the event? Your experience can be influenced by how you were feeling before and during the event, as well as your personality, your interpretation of the event and even genetic and biological factors. Other people’s reaction to the event can also have an effect on your experience. Did people believe you and validate how you felt? Or did they minimize the event or refuse to take it seriously?
Effects
Afterward, what effects might the event have on you? The effect of a traumatic event varies depending on the event and the experience. Some people experience a healthy stress response and seem to “bounce back” from the event. Other folks might experience significant symptoms of traumatic stress and later undergo a period of post-traumatic growth, where they reach an even greater level of well-being than they had prior to the event.
Other trajectories, however, can be cause for concern:
Vicarious trauma, where you take on someone else’s trauma as your own and may experience symptoms of PTSD yourself
Moral injury, in which a traumatic event forces you to make a decision that does not align with your core values; for example, a doctor being forced to choose how to allocate scarce medical resources during a deadly crisis
Major depressive disorder or exacerbation of pre-existing mental illness
Acute stress disorder (ASD)
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Any traumatic event from a personal tragedy to a global crisis like COVID-19 can take an emotional toll and cause traumatic stress. But there are ways to regain control of your life.
Dealing with traumatic stress
Just as it can often take time to clear the rubble and repair the damage following a disaster or traumatic event, it can also take time to recover your emotional equilibrium and rebuild your life. But there are specific things you can do to help yourself and your loved one’s cope with the emotional aftermath of trauma and find a way to move on with your life.
Dealing with painful emotions
Give yourself time to heal and to mourn any losses you’ve experienced
Don’t try to force the healing process
Be patient with the pace of recovery
Be prepared for difficult and volatile emotions
Allow yourself to feel whatever you’re feeling without judgment or guilt
Learn to reconnect with uncomfortable emotions without becoming overwhelmed
When to seek professional treatment
Usually, feelings of anxiety, numbness, confusion, guilt, and despair following a disaster or traumatic event will start to fade within a relatively short time. However, if your traumatic stress reaction is so intense and persistent that it is getting in the way of your ability to function, you may need help from a mental health professional, preferably a trauma specialist.
If your child has been traumatized …
The intense, confusing, and frightening emotions that follow a traumatic event can be even more pronounced in children, whether they directly experienced the event or were repeatedly exposed to disturbing media coverage. You can help your child cope with traumatic stress and move on from the event or you may need help from a mental health professional / counsellor.
We are here for you
For Professional Confidential Counselling contact us on
Gauteng & Other regions: 0861 776 227 admin@procare.co.za
Western Cape: 021- 8 730 532 procwc@procare.co.za
Read more:
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/ptsd-trauma/traumatic-stress.htm
https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/impact-of-trauma