Trauma has been a popular topic in recent years. Trauma can be caused by seemingly small things, such as a child’s interaction with a family member, all the way up to terrifying personal or global events. While the events themselves can be long forgotten by others, the trauma stays in your mind and body until you can process the emotions around it and heal. When that doesn’t happen, the trauma builds up and can affect your physical and mental health. It is almost as if you are reliving that trauma all the time, which can cause you to seek out drugs or alcohol to self-medicate from the pain.
What is Trauma?
When you experience something that causes you severe emotional and psychological distress, it can cause trauma. While most people endure extreme experiences like war, natural disaster, violence, abuse, assault, or torture, trauma can also be caused by things that others may not even notice, such as emotional abuse or bullying. Trauma is how your experiences impact you emotionally, psychologically, and physically.
How Can Trauma Affect People Differently?
Something that cannot be predicted is how each individual will react to the same traumatic experience. For example, among soldiers who go to war and experience the same battles, some will not experience long-term trauma, while others will be haunted indefinitely. Even within families, siblings who experience the same abuse may have different reactions.
While there are some factors like pre-existing stressors, genetics, prior trauma, an existing mental health condition, and a lack of support that may increase your chances of experiencing trauma, no one can predict how you will react when traumatic experiences happen to you. Nor can anyone predict why the same event affects different people in different ways.
What Happens if Trauma is Not Addressed?
When trauma is not addressed, your brain gets stuck in the event. You may have nightmares, flashbacks, or simply be reminded of the traumatic event regularly. Your outlook can be clouded by what happened, impacting your views and reactions or responses to seemingly unrelated events or people. Often, traumatic responses are not even conscious thoughts or actions.
For example, a woman who has been sexually abused by a male may perceive all males as threatening or dangerous. This can impact her everyday interactions with men, any potential relationships, and more. Trauma can give you a negative outlook on life, or produce anxiety in situations that seem harmless to others.
Can Trauma Impact My Physical Health?
Your response to trauma can even include physical symptoms, such as insomnia, fatigue, changes in eating habits, being easily started, having troubles concentrating, being agitated often, experiencing muscle tension, or unexplained aches and pains. Trauma is not only stored in your memories and your brain, but it is also stored in your body. When trauma is not addressed, the symptoms will linger or even worsen until you can process the emotions surrounding the initial trauma.
How is Substance Abuse Linked to Trauma?
Many people experiencing trauma will try to self-medicate the emotional pain with drugs or alcohol. Often unaware of why they are experiencing the pain, they are simply looking for an escape from how they are feeling. Once you begin using substances to numb your pain, you are at high risk for substance abuse.
Addiction can occur quickly and easily when you drink or use drugs to numb emotional pain. Now what started as one problem is compounded by another whole set of problems surrounding substance abuse. Even if you seek treatment for addiction, you will be at higher risk for relapse unless you address the underlying emotional issues caused by the initial traumatic event.
How Can I Heal from Trauma?
Trauma does not go away or heal on its own. Therapeutic intervention is important to be able to heal from your traumatic experiences. This might include individual or group therapy, or specific forms of therapy such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. CBT and EMDR are evidence-based therapies that can help you heal from long-term trauma, sometimes even very quickly.
When you seek therapy for trauma, you are healing deep wounds that may have affected you mentally, emotionally, and physically for many years. If you have also experienced substance abuse, then seeking treatment for your addiction simultaneously to seeking healing for your trauma is important to your overall wellness. Healing from your trauma will help take away the original reasons you may have used drugs or alcohol, which allows you to experience recovery more fully.
Trauma is a real emotional response to events in your life. Even though traumatic events can affect people in different ways, when trauma is not addressed, it can impact your entire life, including your physical health. Trauma is also one of the most common reasons that people begin drinking or using drugs, which can lead to substance abuse and addiction. At Promising Outlook, we understand how trauma can impact your life. We know that complete healing from addiction occurs only when you have addressed the underlying causes of your initial substance use. We offer individual counseling and group sessions to help you heal from both trauma and addiction. Call our Riverside, California location at 951-783-2487 to learn more. You don’t have to live your entire life clouded by traumatic events from your past. Contact us today to find out how to leave your substance abuse and trauma in your past where it belongs.