At times trauma symptoms don’t ease up or can become worse. While emotional trauma is a normal response to a disturbing event, it becomes PTSD when your nervous system gets “stuck”. You may remain in psychological shock, unable to make sense of what happened or process your emotions. The defining difference is based on the person’s response, more than by what caused it.
Emotional and psychological trauma can be caused by many things. Events, such as an accident, injury, or a violent attack, especially if it was unexpected or happened in childhood, creates emotional trauma. Ongoing, relentless stress, such as living in a crime-ridden neighborhood, battling a life-threatening illness or experiencing traumatic events that occur repeatedly also induces trauma. In addition, behaviour such as bullying, domestic violence, or childhood neglect, even commonly overlooked causes such as surgery, the sudden death of someone close, the breakup of a significant relationship, or a humiliating or deeply disappointing experience, especially if someone was deliberately cruel, can all cause traumas.
Experiencing trauma in childhood can result in a severe and long-lasting effect. When childhood trauma is not resolved, a sense of fear and helplessness carries over into adulthood, setting the stage for further trauma. However, even if your trauma happened many years ago, there are steps you can take to overcome the pain, learn to trust and connect to others again, and regain your sense of emotional balance.
Emotional & psychological symptoms for trauma are many and varied. They can include shock, denial, or disbelief, confusion, difficulty concentrating, anger, irritability, mood swings, anxiety and fear, guilt, shame, self-blame, withdrawing from others, feeling sad or hopeless, as well as feeling disconnected or numb. Other symptoms include insomnia, nightmares, fatigue, being startled easily, difficulty concentrating, a racing heartbeat, edginess, agitation, aches and pains, as well as muscle tension.
Healing from trauma benefits greatly from online counseling and therapy. It can be complemented by exercise, sleep, healthy nutrition, mindfulness and mediation. In addition, support from friends and family is important. Getting involved in community service has positive effects. Avoiding drugs and alcohol and limiting stressful situations is also helpful.
However, talk therapy has proven valuable in helping people overcome the distress, pain, and dysfunction that come from having lived through the most overwhelmingly threatening experiences. In fact, there is evidence that CBT and other forms of trauma focused therapy can change the way your brain works after trauma, through Neuroplasticity.
Many studies exploring the efficacy of online therapy for a range of conditions, such as anxiety, depression, trauma and PTSD, mood disorders, phobias, found internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (ICBT) to be just as effective as in-person therapy. From the comfort of your own home you have an internet connection. This also helps remove some of the barriers in place with traditional therapy, such as social anxieties or negative stigma associated with going to therapy.