5 Things You Need To Know About Trauma

1. Not all trauma requires PTSD diagnosis

Not all traumatic experiences result in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). There is a list of criteria one must meet before getting an official diagnosis. I’ve had clients experience traumatic events, and their friends tell them, “I wouldn’t be sleeping if I were you,” causing them to feel like something is wrong with them. Some become worried that they are repressing their feelings. While this might be true, not everyone develops PTSD when experiencing a traumatic event. Not everyone who experiences trauma will develop symptoms of PTSD. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you if you don’t develop symptoms. In some cases (I see it more and more with shootings), we as a society have become desensitized to traumatic events, and they don’t affect us like they once did. 

2. Trauma can show up differently 

If a brother and a sister grew up in the same household with an abusive father, their symptoms of trauma can manifest in different ways. The brother’s trauma might manifest into to an OCD diagnosis, while his sister’s trauma manifest in occasional anxiety. Both had the same experience and with different outcomes. This happens for many reasons. Trauma can turn on different gene expressions, meaning the brother had the genetic marker for OCD and the other one didn’t, or the trauma wasn’t enough to turn on her OCD gene expression in the sister. Another reason for different outcomes is environmental factors. Maybe the sister has been comforted by her brother which helped with her encoding of the trauma in an adaptable way. Each person is unique in how they experience any situation. 

3. Trauma can be small moments that we interpret negatively

Small moments that have caused a negative impact. For example, if when you were little, your parent was running late from picking you up from school, your younger self might have interpreted that moment as being forgotten. Mom doesn’t know you felt forgotten because she didn’t check in with how you were doing because she was so stressed about the meeting that ran over. Because you are a child and your little kid brain wants a happy mom, you put aside your feelings for hers. 15 years later, you have lived with this painful feeling of always feeling forgotten of things and remember this moment vividly. Logically we know mothers run behind and life happens; however, your kid brain coded this as you were forgotten, and it stuck with you. 

  4. Trauma can be caused by repeated events

Trauma can be caused by events happening over and over again. Maybe you had a sick sibling, and you were left to play by yourself a lot because your parents were busy taking care of them. This happened over and over again, which may have caused a deep sense of loneliness. Your parents praised you for how well-behaved you were and how you were a very responsible little kid. While these aren’t necessarily bad things, they also come with the price of loneliness. The repeated events of your parents taking care of your sick sibling left you alone in your room many nights. As an adult, you understand that your sibling suffered from their illness and required a lot of attention AND this also caused a lot of loneliness for you. 

5. Not everyone experiences the same events as traumatic.

We all experience traumatic events differently.  For example, two people were in the same classroom during a school shooting. One develops PTSD, and has flashbacks and sleepless nights, while another student has no adverse reaction. They just feel sad when they think about it. Why? Because we encoded this event differently. Each student made meaning of the situation differently. Maybe the student suffering from PTSD feels like they could have stopped the shooter while the other student knows they did the best they could to keep themselves safe. Their brains coded the event differently, causing them to react differently. 

In conclusion, trauma encompasses how any event, big or small, impacts an individual and is encoded in their brain. Not all traumatic experiences result in PTSD, and trauma can manifest differently for different people due to genetics, environment, and individual interpretation. Trauma can stem from small moments and repeated events, shaping our emotions and perceptions. Importantly, individuals may react differently to the same event based on their unique encoding. Understanding and empathizing with diverse responses to trauma is key.  

As we continue to explore the complexities of trauma, it prompts us to question: How can we foster a greater understanding and empathy for the diverse ways in which individuals process and cope with traumatic events?