The Inner World Of Trauma (towards Integration)

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Author: Suprun Stanislav

^{"Two years later, which seemed to convince him of endless own unsuitability, the jug turned to the old woman: - I am ashamed of my crack, from which all the way to your house water is always running. The old woman chuckled. - Have you noticed that flowers grow on your side of the path, but not on the side of the other jug? On your side of the path, I sowed flower seeds because I knew about your lack. So you water them every day when we go home. For two years I could admire these wonderful flowers and decorate my home with them. If you were not what you are, then this beauty would not exist."}

^{"The Parable of the Cracked Jug".}

The traumatic experience is so intense that it cannot be processed by the psyche and is "stuck" in an undigested form. Subsequently, a person experiences separate fragments, pieces of trauma, which manifest themselves in the mental, emotional, bodily spheres. As a result of the trauma, the feeling of trust in oneself and other people suffers, and the feeling of safety disappears. The world and people are seen as threatening, unreliable. Learned helplessness and dependence, a desire to be good for others, as a way to survive in a dangerous world and, as a result, to lose oneself are formed.

We talk about developmental traumas when a traumatic event happened during the development of a child, as a result of which there is a restructuring of the psyche with the formation of certain protective mechanisms and characterological traits. The traumatic experience is partially repressed, but periodically emerges brightly in consciousness under the influence of various activating signals. Additional education appears in the psyche, which can be figuratively compared to a thorn in the eye. A person begins to look at the world through a traumatic distortion and in one direction he can see clearly, and in the other his gaze becomes clouded and unseeing.

One of the components of the injury is a sentinel guard who scans the area for threats and possible danger. The problem is that this guard has impaired perception. He looks like a blind man trying to guess who a tiger or a hare is approaching him, or a deaf man trying to distinguish the sounds of thunder from Bach's music by ear. And from time to time he takes one thing for another. Trauma has entry points, these are places of special sensitivity that trigger a traumatic experience in a partial and altered form - a symptom.

The guard consists of a high level of mental agitation and anxiety. In the event of an acute injury, the guard constantly turns on the switch, which activates the alarm system. This is because it is important for the guard to prevent re-injury. And when the guard sees something that seems to him at least somewhat dangerous, he activates the system of defense reactions. However, by doing so it also activates the reliving of the traumatic experience.

Over time, the process becomes chronic. The guard gets tired over time, then he can stop noticing threats, overwhelmed and begins to turn off emotional and / or bodily sensitivity. Sometimes the guard calms himself down through the constant repetition of an action, which becomes a presented symptom and contributes to the release of tension and complacency. Thus, a person replaces an unbearable traumatic experience with a symptom. Often this is accompanied by a loss of faith in oneself, a feeling of lack of support and the meaninglessness of life. There is a feeling of confusion and disbelief in one's internal reactions, since it is difficult to distinguish between the actual experience and the actual situation and the echo of the traumatic experience. Then the method of protection can be chosen to isolate oneself from the world, contacts, avoid situations that cause tension. There is another extreme in the form of excessive "heroism", constant self-defense, a sudden surge of negative emotions, aggressive defense even in neutral situations.

Thus, the traumatic experience is always close to the conscious part and seeks to be processed and integrated, but at the same time is protected from full admission into consciousness. Trying to be lived and internalized, the trauma runs like a sailboat between defense mechanisms that run aground and force it into a dark grotto until the next tide.

How to deal with trauma (first steps you can take before working with a psychologist):

1. Remember that a traumatic event is stored in your psyche and learn to recognize how it manifests itself, what symptoms, what is their triggering factor.

2. Get to know the security guard - when the peak of alarm appears, stop and check it for correlating the real situation and imaginary danger. Ask yourself the questions: "Is there really something threatening me now?", "Where does the feeling of danger come from?", "Is it so dangerous for me now?"

3. If the traumatic experience is started, try to switch your attention to the outside world. The simplest exercise is to look at what surrounds you, hear what sounds the space is filled with, feel your body, especially those parts that touch the support - the chair, if you are sitting, the floor, if you are standing.

4. Awareness of bodily tension and work with it, learning how to relax. Various methods of working with the body are suitable: body-oriented therapy, yoga, pilates, qigong.

5. Search for resources in the past (positive memories), the present (which I now enjoy) and the future (positively colored dreams, desires, plans). Make a list of resource events in your life.

6. Be attentive to your condition. Notice how tired or tense you are, relieve tension, rest on time.

7. Remember that some of your reactions come from the trauma. When traumatic experiences arise in different life situations, it is important to pause and give yourself time to realize what is happening to you. You cannot make decisions and act out of traumatic experiences.

8. Accept trauma as a feature, not a punishment. Some traumas remain with us forever, but we can significantly reduce their destructive impact on our lives.

9. And remember, your life does not end with trauma! This is a difficult test, but it is also an opportunity to change your life, to become more conscious and holistic.