Top 10 Questions To Determine If Your Body Is Holding Emotional Trauma From Your Past
By Michael Cerreto
It's essential to recognize the signs of emotional trauma, as it can show up in different ways, even in your body. Recent research studies have identified the top ten questions you can answer to determine if your body is holding onto emotional trauma from your past so you can get help.
Do you experience sudden physical or emotional reactions without an apparent reason? Initial responses to trauma can involve feeling tired, confused, sad, worried, restless, emotionally numb, detached, physically on edge, and emotionally flat. (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2014).
Are you struggling with persistent fatigue or sleep disorders? When someone experiences delayed responses to trauma, it can result in ongoing tiredness and sleep issues, like having nightmares and being fearful of the traumatic event happening again. (American Psychological Association [APA], 2013).
Do you have difficulty regulating your emotions? People who have been through trauma, especially at a young age, might have trouble managing their feelings, such as anger, anxiety, sadness, and shame. (Cloitre et al., 2019).
Do you feel emotionally numb or detached? Sometimes, when something wrong happens, our feelings get disconnected from our thoughts and memories. This disconnect makes you feel numb, and it's your body's way of protecting you from trauma. (Lanius et al., 2010).
Do you often feel you are constantly on alert for potential threats? One typical sign of traumatic experiences is being on edge, which might show up as being easily startled or always being on the lookout for danger. (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
Are there specific triggers that cause you to relive past traumatic experiences? Trauma can lead to triggers, which are things that can bring up a memory or a particular part of a traumatic experience, causing flashbacks. (van der Kolk, 2014).
Do you feel disconnected from your emotions? Dissociation is when your mind disconnects your thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, and sense of who you are as a way to handle tough stuff like overwhelming trauma. (van der Hart et al., 2016).
Have you noticed changes in how your brain processes threats? Trauma can cause the brain's salience network to change, which is used for learning and survival. This can impact how the brain handles threats and safety (Akiki et al., 2017).
Is your response to perceived threats altered? People who have PTSD might react differently to things they see as threatening. This reaction can show up as changes in how the brain signals between the hippocampus and the salience network. (Akiki et al., 2017).
Does your ability to regulate emotions impact your quality of life? When someone has trouble controlling their emotions, which can happen after a challenging experience, it can make their life harder. It can affect thinking, daily activities, movement, social life, self-care, and social skills. (Cloitre et al., 2019).
It's essential to recognize these signs as they can help you understand when you when to seek professional help for somatic trauma therapy to work through and heal emotional trauma.
References
Akiki, T. J., Averill, C. L., & Abdallah, C. G. (2017). A Network-Based Neurobiological Model of PTSD: Evidence From Structural and Functional Neuroimaging Studies. Current Psychiatry Reports, 19(11), 81. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-017-0839-x
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596
American Psychological Association. (2013). APA dictionary of psychology. https://dictionary.apa.org/
Cloitre, M., Garvert, D. W., Weiss, B., Carlson, E. B., & Bryant, R. A. (2019). Distinguishing PTSD, Complex PTSD, and Borderline Personality Disorder: A latent class analysis. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 5(1), 25097. https://doi.org/10.3402/ejpt.v5.25097
Lanius, R. A., Vermetten, E., & Pain, C. (2010). The impact of early life trauma on health and disease: The hidden epidemic. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511777042
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2014). SAMHSA's concept of trauma and guidance for a trauma-informed approach. HHS Publication No. (SMA) 14-4884. https://store.samhsa.gov/system/files/sma14-4884.pdf
van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E. R., & Steele, K. (2016). The haunted self: Structural dissociation and the treatment of chronic traumatization.
W. W. Norton & Company. van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in healing trauma. Viking.
