Living With Someone Else’s Trauma: Part I

We typically don’t make the connection between daily life struggles and long-ago painful experiences. After all, how could something that happened twenty years ago be the reason why one isn’t able to communicate their needs in relationships, or feels a chronic sense of worthlessness and depression, or makes bad decisions over and over despite negative consequences?

Yet, the direct impact that prior pain can have on present circumstances is real. Without an understanding of the role past events play in our current ways of relating to others, we are often left in a chronic state of frustration with our loved ones. We feel hurt by their behaviors and blame their current poor choices as the problem that needs to be fixed. Or, we feel stuck in a “bad” marriage or relationship to someone whom we see as hopelessly blind to our needs.

But the real issue to address may be underlying trauma. The person we love is truly lacking skills to navigate life, and they walk each day through a series of triggers for painful trauma associations that they may not even be aware of. They are just as clueless as to what is going on with them as the people living with them are.

So what exactly is trauma, and how do we maintain relationships with people who have been impacted by it? In this series, I will explain what trauma is, how it shows up in everyday life and provide practical ideas on how to maintain a relationship with someone who is still impacted by their previous traumas.

What is Trauma?

Trauma can be most simply understood as any experience in which an overwhelming sense of critical danger or deprivation causes the brain and body to feel its survival is in question. This stress response makes sense in the moment–and may even save your life–but once the event passes, for some people, the stress response does not.

Unfortunately, trauma has recently become a trendy and overused word in social media communication. This misapplication of trauma as a real diagnosis can cause us to dismiss its serious effects on ourselves and those around us. A basic understanding of true trauma and how it is stored in our brains is therefore necessary as we work toward healing the hurt in all our lives.

When a person is experiencing a traumatic event, several key things happen in the brain and body as it seeks to protect itself and survive. These include raised heart rate, increased cortisol and adrenaline, inability to think clearly, tunnel vision, nausea, shaking, among several other physiological responses.

Basically, the body automatically enters a survival state with its entire focus on getting through the event intact. Blood is prioritized around the central organs to preserve the core, digestion is halted as it is unnecessary in survival. The prefrontal cortex (the judgment and decision-making part of the brain) goes temporarily offline as the amygdala (the fear and emotions center) takes over. All of this can happen instantaneously and automatically.

Not every person’s stress response looks the same, but four general types have been commonly noted. These include fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.

The fight response happens when the person experiencing trauma responds aggressively and with force, often from a sense of overwhelm and panic. They may yell, argue, act violently and even appear to be a threat themselves–however, in their brain they are generally terrified and engaging all their resources to survive that moment.

The flight response describes a desperate attempt to leave the painful situation immediately. Someone may flee the scene, lock themselves in a room, hide, or simply walk away. They may look panicked or they may look focused on their goal–surviving by way of exiting. A flight response is what we typically imagine someone would do if they are triggered.

The freeze response causes a person to shut down verbally, physically, and emotionally. They may appear confused or in shock, or may even have a blank look on their face that seems out of place. They may stand and stare, or nod as if listening but in reality, may have completely disengaged and will not remember the scene later. This response is the most often misunderstood as someone “not caring,” when in reality they may care deeply but are physiologically too overwhelmed to react or engage.

When someone is in a fawn response, their survival mode causes them to look like they are trying to charm or influence the threat in order to mitigate the damage. A person with this response often feels they have no power to fight or flee the situation and the only way to survive is to somehow contain the pain and prevent further havoc.

Although these trauma responses may appear very different from one another, they all have several key things in common. The first is that these responses are all automatic. The second is that when someone is triggered, typical functioning ceases. When the brain is busy trying to survive, it does not have the resources to attend to normal functions such as thinking clearly, recording memories properly, taking in new information, or engaging in rational discussion. This is very important to understand because many times when we are interacting with someone who is having a trauma response, we don’t recognize how impaired they really are in that moment. They are physiologically and mentally unable to be present, rational or logical.

Once the traumatic event has passed, the person doesn’t necessarily resume normal functioning. Many times, the brain records the situation as so stressful and threatening that it aims to never forget the cues, triggers, and associations so that it will never be caught off guard again. It generates self-protective symptoms such as: hyper-vigilance, worry, inability to relax, sleep problems, expecting the worst, avoidance of perceived triggers, inability to focus or concentrate, and inability to feel a sense of joy.

These recurring stress and panic symptoms are usually not related to one’s present circumstances, but are instead leftover attempts to self-protect a perceived potential danger in the present or future.

These responses can be described as normal reactions to abnormal events. In other words, they make sense if survival is the primary goal. However, they can become a huge problem if the person is trying to live a normal life but their brain and body won’t let them move past the event and create a new normal. In many ways, they become victims of themselves.

So how do we have healthy relationships with people who are helplessly stuck in their past trauma? Where did the trauma come from in the first place? What does it look like to support someone while also holding them accountable?

We’ll start exploring these questions and more together in my next post.

Stay tuned.