Do You Know the Ways to Escape the Trap of Trauma?
Trauma is an emotional response to an event that a person experiences that produces more emotion than the individual's mind can handle. It causes the person to feel as if they are imprisoned in a life sentence to emotionally, mentally and physically experience the effects of the trauma forever. The trauma causes the person to feel as if they are a victim who is a prisoner to this life changing event. As is the case with most prisoners, the individual sense of time is impacted causing the person to either constantly live in the past or to lose a chunk of time that is about the traumatic experience. Although time and life progress forward all around the individual, the prisoner to the trauma is stuck, experiencing the past in the present with no ability to see a future. Trauma becomes the destroyer of time, mentally and emotionally incapacitating the individual's ability to move forward in various areas of their life.
Traumatic events is a skillful means of psychological warfare used by pathological deviants. Those who like to cross the boundaries of others aggressively to control mentally or physically others through violent means, desire to invoke fear in their victims and anyone who may oppose them. This fear that they wish to invoke is intended to leave a lasting impact on their victims. Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust exemplifies the effects of psychological warfare at a greater collective level. The result is no different on an individual level as victims of domestic, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse live mentally and emotionally trapped by the impact of trauma on a daily basis.
In the video, Dr. Bessel Von der Kolk, Medical Director of the Trauma Center, discusses ways to escape the trap of trauma. The first method he proposes is for mental health professionals to take a nonverbal approach that will help those who have experienced trauma go through the motions of experiencing their emotions; becoming conscious of the experience and how they are experiencing these feelings. This method means that the individual will need to go through a process of self-reflection to internally reflect on the emotional experience. Journaling is a method that can accomplish this goal for those who are unable or unwilling to work with a mental health professional in working through a traumatic experience.
Dr. Von der Kolk also indicates that it is necessary for the individual who has suffered a trauma to re-establish their internal sense of time that has been wrecked by the traumatic event. The anxiety and stress of trauma induce tension and other physiological symptoms in the body. It is important for the individual to become conscious of these symptoms. They should consider what they are thinking and feeling during the occurrence of these symptoms. By carefully evaluating on their symptoms, thoughts, and feelings, trauma survivors can gain insight as to how they can decrease their symptoms as time progresses forward. Journaling this information can help the individual to review their pattern of thought, feelings, and behavior to evaluate how they can change their thought and behavior patterns as well as their emotions, to promote positive change in their life. Dr. Von der Kolk indicates that by knowing that these sensations and emotions will eventually end will help to establish the person's sense of time.
Another way of escaping the trap of trauma is by incorporating activities that will cause you to build endurance in experience an emotionally or physically stressful task for a period. Taking on an endurance activity can help the person to develop their mental, physical, and emotional capacity. An exercise such as running or yoga can help to increase their internal sense of time as they endure an activity that requires for them to push past the point that they feel they cannot survive a task any longer. Actively working towards increasing the period of time that one endures an activity will impact the individual's sense of time that the initial trauma destroyed.
Survivors of trauma should know that they do not have to feel as if they are a prisoner of the experience of the traumatic event. They should be aware that they can be overcomers who can be set free from the emotional roller coaster that feels as if it will never end. Mental Health Professionals can help those who experienced traumatic events to escape the trap of trauma; however, if the individual does not feel ready or able to work with a Mental Health Professional, they can begin the process through journaling and self-reflection. You can work towards becoming your personal best through the 'Daring You To Be YOU!' Personal Development Coaching Journals. Visit the site to see which book works for you!
