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A severe form
of stress reactions can occur when you have experienced a traumatic
event (an injury, loss of a loved one or property or a serious threat,
or any overwhelming emotional experience). Even though the event
may be completed, you may now be experiencing or may experience later,
some strong emotional or physical reactions. It is very common,
in fact quite normal, for people to experience emotional aftershocks
when they have passed through a horrible event, or somebody close to
them is the one involved in the horrible event.
Those who are
close to that person may also experience various levels of shock and
these different, strong feelings, if not worked through, will continue
to surface and create havoc in their lives. A person so affected will
overreact, or experience feelings totally at odds, with their current
situation.
Sometimes the
emotional aftershocks (or traumatic stress reactions) appear
immediately after the traumatic event. Sometimes they may appear
a few hours or a few days later. And, in some cases, weeks,
months or years may pass before the traumatic stress reactions appear.
The signs and
symptoms of a traumatic stress reaction may last a few days, a few
weeks or a few months and occasionally longer, depending on the
severity of the traumatic event. With knowledge, resources,
understanding and the support of loved ones, the traumatic stress
reactions usually pass more quickly. Occasionally the traumatic
event is so painful that professional assistance from a counsellor may
be necessary. This does not imply craziness or weakness. It
simply indicates that the particular traumatic event was just too
powerful for the person to manage by themselves. The sooner
we seek assistance and knowledge, the less complicated our recovery is.
Although we
like to be able to handle things ourselves, and may like to be able to
assure friends and family that we are OK, capable and/or that we don’t
like to make a fuss, sometimes the very coping strategies we use to
“soldier on” cause us more problems especially in the areas of close
relationships.
Sometimes
something else happens, even normally quite insignificant things, can
become the “straw that breaks the camel’s back” and focus is put on
that problem neglecting the underlying traumatic stress recovery issues.
Imagine a water
tap and when we turn off the tap of feelings so as to escape the
horrible feelings. When we turn off the tap, nothing can come
out, including the positive, loving feelings that are usually expressed
between people we are close to. If this way of coping continues
over a longer period of time, we can end up with problems in our
relationships to add to our emotional distress.
Unfortunately,
from my extensive experience, I have noticed that many people don’t
seek assistance until the extra problems become so big, and their life
is chaotic or in tatters, that they have to seek counselling, or their
life goes from bad to worse.
We all play
many roles in life (wear different hats!) eg. spouse,
parent, child, employee, etc. When none of the
person's usual roles encompass the traumatic
event, thus the person is not adequately equipped
to deal with the situation, a process needs to be
gone through, after the event. We need to
become an expert in managing some of the after-effects and also learn
how to diminish those after-effects.
The analogy of
the jigsaw may explain this more clearly. Life can be
viewed as a huge jigsaw. There is a complete picture, however it
takes time, through trial and error,
to learn where all the pieces go.
A traumatic episode seems to have the effect of blowing
up much of the already completed picture
that the person has so painstakingly put together. Foreign
pieces that don’t belong to the picture s/he had set out
before the trauma, suddenly have to be found a place in the
picture of self and the world.
As life
is a gradual process most of the time, the person has not
learned how to manage and put
together a sudden destruction of that
picture. The way that the person copes with
rebuilding their life is to not look at all the destruction
at once if it can possibly be avoided. Consequently, so
many ‘bits’ become temporarily lost from sight, forgotten
about or just out of conscious reach.
Recovery
involves being able to take those horrible foreign pieces and work with
them to remove the jaggedness, thus diminish the pain and other
reactions. Eventually we find a place for these aspects of
our experience and may even find some silver linings on the dark
clouds, which at least include wisdom, and a stronger person more
equipped to deal with unexpected stress and trauma.
When a person
suffers post trauma stress, they often find the following things
happening in their everyday lives:
- Getting upset very easily and often seem
to get very angry at little things.
- Have nightmares about the event.
These dreams come back again and again, and are very distressing.
- Remember the event at odd times during
the day, for seemingly no reason. These are like flashbacks and are
very distressing.
- May often experience difficulties around
the anniversary of the time the event occurred (ie. On certain
days during the year).
- Have trouble falling asleep and staying
asleep.
- Difficulties concentrating .
- Reacting very quickly to an event which
reminds them of their previous experience (e.g. Exaggerated startled
jump when people approach).
- Find it hard to feel involved with others
and may not show much interest in being with other people.
- May find it very difficult to show
affection to people they care about.
- Efforts to avoid feelings and thoughts
associated with the traumatic event by numbing themselves (eg. By
drinking a lot of alcohol).
- Feeling sad and depressed a lot.
- May find it very difficult to talk about
their experience.
Issues to consider when seeking counselling
or assistance
- Ask the
counsellor, support worker, youthworker, doctor, if they know about
Traumatic Stress and can give you specialist support and advice for
managing the effects. Don’t accept medication only, and
only in extreme cases.
- When you are
feeling the effects, you will hear and know yourself whether they can
relate to how you are feeling, because you will hear from their
response and/or description whether they have an understanding of the
feelings that you are experiencing.
- If they will
not give you 5-10 minutes over the phone to assure you that they have a
skilled understanding, perhaps they may not be the right person, as a
key issue of traumatic stress is the need to know that the assistance
we will receive is appropriate and that they will have a good
understanding of our feelings. One of the feelings that need
understanding is the difficulty ordinary people experience in seeking
professional assistance in the first place, because most of us like
everyone to see us as able to cope. Secondly, when we have
experienced trauma, it is important to be given information that
contributes to a feeling of empowerment and safety again rather than
more uncertainty, and dis-empowerment.
- Ask them if
they understand both the grief and traumatic stress reactions.
Contact us and we
will discuss with you how we can address your needs!
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