![]() ![]() Complex trauma survivors often struggle with emotional regulation, as evidenced by persistent feelings of depression, rage, and panic. Complex trauma can include extended periods of physical, verbal, emotional, and/or sexual abuse, experiencing a death or other significant loss, parental abandonment, parental rejection, family chaos, parental substance abuse, and bullying from peers or siblings. Complex trauma can also result from growing up in a dysfunctional family environment with a low level of emotional support and a high level of inconsistency. ![]() Survivors of chronic trauma also tend to internalize toxic shame, helplessness, and a feeling of “separateness” from others.Ĭomplex trauma occurs when a child experiences multiple traumatic events, such as witnessing repeated episodes of interpersonal violence, being victimized by physical abuse or sexual abuse, being separated from one’s primary caregiver, and or enduring years of emotional abuse or neglect. Chronic trauma has long-lasting effects which extend throughout the adult years, in the form of hypervigilance, irrational fears, emotional instability, frequent negative self-talk, self-destructive behaviors, involvement in abusive relationships, and having a general sense of being “flawed” as a human being. Furthermore, the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for creating the relaxation response, can become extremely paralyzed. Chronic trauma rewires the brain’s fight-or-flight response so dramatically that the survivor becomes “stuck” in the sympathetic nervous system’s heightened adrenaline state. Chronic trauma can occur for months to years. Three other forms of trauma are chronic trauma, complex trauma, and intergenerational trauma.Ĭ hronic trauma results from repeated and prolonged exposure to highly stressful events, such as long-term emotional neglect, emotional abuse, family violence, community-based violence, childhood physical or sexual abuse, bullying, or domestic violence. However, three other types of trauma require more extensive research and greater clarity by mental health professionals when treating a client with anxiety, depression, attention deficits, and work and/or personal difficulties. This type of trauma is categorized as acute trauma. ![]() Many people understand the concept of “trauma” as a single event, such as being an assault victim or witnessing a death. After experiencing a traumatic event or even ongoing emotional abuse, your hippocampus cannot separate safe events from the traumatic events, thus keeping you in a constant state of crisis mode. The brain structure which is most severely damaged by traumatic events is the hippocampus, which is your brain’s memory structure. Furthermore, traumatic experiences cause your prefrontal cortex to have extreme difficulty in regulating your emotional responses to external events and in utilizing effective coping strategies in all areas of your life. Traumatic experiences create an overreactive fear response within the amygdala, and, even with therapy, triggers can randomly affect the amygdala’s ability to manage any stressor. The most significant brain structure affected by traumatic events is the amygdala, which triggers your “fight-or-flight” response. If you have experienced one or more traumatic life events, your brain chemistry was “rewired” in the important decision-making and emotional regulation pathways, and specific brain structures were debilitated in their functioning potential. Trauma can occur in many different forms: (1) directly experiencing a violent event or mistreatment from peers or family members, (2) witnessing a violent event or death which happens to someone else, (3) dealing with a traumatic event which happened to a close friend or family member, (4) experiencing physical or emotional abuse, (5) experiencing abandonment or neglect, (6) losing a family member to suicide, (7) growing up in a household with substance abuse or alcoholism, (8) having a mentally ill parent, (9) having an incarcerated parent, and (10) being a child of divorce or parental separation Trauma refers to events which are emotionally painful and which remain in an individual’s subconscious throughout one’s life. ![]()
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