What Suppressing Trauma Does to Your Health
Trauma is more than an issue that’s “just in your head.”
Trauma has the power to affect your mental, emotional, and physical health. Your mind doesn’t work the way it should, you are burdened by emotional pain, and your body physically struggles.
We know that the body and mind are interconnected in intricate ways. When you struggle with something like trauma, it seriously impacts your overall health. That’s why it’s so important to get help.
Consider how suppressing trauma can affect your mental, emotional, and physical health.
Understanding the Basics of Trauma
First, it helps to understand what trauma is. A traumatic experience is one in which you experience a loss or feel that your safety is threatened.
Some examples of traumatic experiences include:
● Being in combat or war
● Sexual abuse
● An accident
● Repeated emotional abuse, day after day, year after year
The result of these experiences is that you remain stuck, for lack of a better word, in those moments of trauma.
If you have the capacity to process that experience, the effect is temporary. But reminders of the trauma in the form of triggering events can bring you back to those moments when you felt fear and a lack of control. And that can lead you to a life filled with stress, anxiety, worry.
The Mental Impact of Trauma
Your brain and mental capacity are severely affected by trauma. Areas of the brain such as the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, as well as the amygdala are impacted. This means that your brain has a diminished capacity to function as it should.
For example, you may struggle with:
● Remembering things, including the events surrounding the trauma
● Processing information
● Focusing on a task
These are all attributes that you need in order to function in society. When you're having trouble with these things, holding a job isn’t easy, and trying to navigate personal relationships becomes ever more difficult.
Trauma and Your Emotions
Another area that is also affected by trauma is your emotional health. If you are suppressing trauma, that will be reflected in your emotions.
For example:
● You always feel on edge, jittery, and anxious
● If you become triggered, you experience fear or terror
● You find it difficult to relax
● When you are stressed, your reaction is way out of proportion to the problem at hand
If you think about it for a moment, this makes sense. Your brain is telling you that you are still in danger. So, you remain in an emotional state based on fear with an intent to protect yourself. And even after the traumatic events are long gone, if you haven’t processed that trauma, the emotional impact is still very real.
Your Physical Health and Trauma
Finally, something that can be overlooked is the connection between trauma and your physical health. When you suppress trauma and you are struggling emotionally, your body will respond.
Some examples of this include:
● Muscle aches or body aches
● Pain that you can’t explain
● Sleep problems; either sleeping too much or not enough
● Rapid breathing and heart rate when triggered
● Increased perspiration
● Either not having an appetite at all or eating too much
You might think that these are isolated things. But the reality is that they can be physical manifestations of the emotional trauma that you have experienced.
How to Get Help
It’s important that if you are struggling with suppressed trauma, you need to get help. Counseling will allow you to resolve those past traumatic experiences and to find the healing you need. An understanding therapist will be empathetic and not judge you. Rather, they will work with you to help you not only cope with the trauma but find closure.
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When you suppress unresolved trauma, it inevitably finds ways to negatively impact your life, but through counseling with a compassionate therapist, you can begin to heal. Contact us today about how Trauma Therapy with Journey Mental Health can help.