Do I have trauma or am I overreacting??
Sometimes it’s hard to know if you have trauma because you’ve become so accustomed to feeling and thinking in a certain way, and it’s hard to imagine that things could be different. You may know of certain events that were traumatic in your life and for those of you in this category you will know you are dealing with trauma. But for some of us, you may think that everything has been hunky-dory in your life yet not know why you feel anxious, panic, scared socially or frightened of intimacy or in relationships.
So, do I have trauma or am I overreacting?? Read on to find out…
What is trauma?
It’s not set in stone what causes trauma because it’s different for each of us. This is why it’s hard to figure out do I have trauma or am I overreacting??
It depends on our resilience, which is a mixture of our character and the environment in which we were raised as children.
And it depends on whether there was someone able to contain us (contain means a parent/carer or partner/friend who could listen and help you bear the unbearable feelings that the trauma brought) during the traumatic event/s.
An example of containment is the parent who believes the child who tells them about sexual abuse. In these cases, the mental health outcomes are much better than the child whose parent does not believe them.
Trauma defined
I define trauma as emotional overwhelm combined with being and feeling alone with the overwhelm and life threat. Put simply, too much, too soon, too alone. Trauma symptoms are a biological response in us which is beyond our control. They are there to help us survive.
So, if you’re having symptoms, you aren’t overreacting. They happen outside of our control and will keep happening until you address the source of the trauma (some examples of treatment are therapy, psychoeducation, yoga or mindful movement).
Single event trauma
Do I have trauma or am I overreacting if it’s from a single event?
Single event trauma is a one-off event such as an earthquake, war, physical attack, sexual assault, or any incident where your life was under threat. In some cases, this causes post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Go here for PTSD symptoms.
Developmental trauma
How do I know if I have trauma that’s developmental?
Developmental trauma is a number of traumatic events, often subtle and small but that all add up, that happened consistently over time (often years).
It’s relational which means it’s linked with your relationship with your main caregiver in childhood. It can be emotional or physical. Such as emotional abuse, and sexual or physical abuse. In most cases, this causes complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD).
Sometimes with the emotional side, it’s not malicious or intentional. It’s just that the parent/caregiver was unable to meet your emotional needs or attune to you emotionally when you were growing up. In these cases, people often don’t realise they’re suffering from C-PTSD. Go here for C-PTSD symptoms.
Because children are dependent on their caregivers and can’t survive without them, there is the feeling of being trapped and being unable to escape. When this is the case and your life was felt to be under threat, it causes trauma.
Trauma is a biological response that is beyond our control
As you can see, whether you have trauma or not depends on lots of different factors combined. It’s important to remember that experiencing trauma is a biological response to life threat. It’s beyond our control, it happens automatically, and is there to help us survive. Most people will recover naturally from a single event trauma, if symptoms last more than three months then you need to seek professional help.
If you resonated with this, would you like some help?
I hope this blog has helped you to figure out “do I have trauma or am I overreacting??”. If you resonate, I’d be happy to hear from you to explore how I might be able to help you. Book a free 15-minute telephone consultation with me.