It's Not Just in Your HEAD: How Trauma can Affect Your Reactions

It is Mental Health Awareness Month! As we have seen over the last decade or so barriers within the Mental Health space have been increasingly acknowledged and addressed that does not minimize the work needed to be done. Whether amongst our pears or ourselves it is important to recognize that healing is not linear. A component of growth in regard to mental health is destigmatizing the narrative that your thoughts and feelings are not real and valid. Hopefully this blog post can provide some reasoning behind some of the almost innate reactions that we may have all experienced at one point or another.

Within this blog we are going to define and provide examples for multiple trauma responses that can be perceived as character traits. By clearly and accurately characterizing these behaviors we can contribute to the destigmatizing of some of the negative and/ or inaccurate conversations centering Mental Health.

What is Trauma?

In order to understand the breakdown of each trauma response we need to recognize the definition of trauma to fully grasp an understanding to each of the responses to it.

Trauma defined by the American Psychological Association is," an emotional response to a terrible event."

A terrible event can vary drastically from witnessing violence or a violent act to an extremely bad car accident. Just because the traumatic event may not have been extremely brutal or gory does not eliminate it from being a traumatic experience.

What are some trauma responses?

Now that we have an understanding of trauma what is the response to trauma? PositivePsychology.com recognizes trauma responses as, "Trauma responses are innate; they occur without our consciousness. A reaction to a perceived threat is called a trauma response. It is a survival instinct; it is reflexive and automatic."

Fawn

We commonly recognize fight or flight as a trauma response, but did you know about fawning? Don't worry we will help you out. "(of a person) give a servile display of exaggerated flattery or affection, typically in order to gain favor or advantage", this definition was provided by Oxford Languages.

An example to understand fawning would be people pleasing. Or a codependent relationship when you are the giver, the person who looks to appease the other person regardless of the negative effects that may have on you.

Fight

Contrary to popular belief the fight response does not always look like knocking out a predator rather it could be engaging in combative behavior which could be arguing. Which at first glance this sort of behavior could be perceived as a character trait if the person observing has no context as to how this behavior may have begun. Fighting as a trauma response can be very isolating to an individual.

Freeze

"This stress response involves the typical stop, look, and listen response and commands hypervigilance (Bracha, 2004)", provided by PositivePsychology.com. Often victim's blame themselves for the traumatic event based upon this trauma response. Please understand trauma responses are instinctual, you are not responsible for the trauma you have experienced. Do not blame yourself for freezing it is a natural innate response to trauma.

An example of this could be you swimming with your friends at the beach when all of a sudden you see a shark fin circling around you. Rather than screaming, kicking or running from it you become as still as a board.

Flight

The MentalDesk.com defines the flight response as "an avoidant behavior that corresponds with escaping dangerous situations". The light response similar to the fight response is a commonly known trauma response because for so long there was a misconception that those two responses were the only trauma responses. Now as more research has been done and we have gained more access to information we see that, that is not accurate.

An example of this could be someone attempting to rob you and your immediate response being to run away from them.

Conclusion

While there are more specific trauma responses these are just a couple of common trauma responses that tend to be perceived as personality traits. Fawning most times can be perceived as people pleasing as a personality trait rather than a trauma informed response. Flight is often perceived as a cowardly trait rather than a response to trauma that may cause a person to avoid perceived danger. Fight is commonly mistaken for a combative person rather than a protection of self or others from perceived harm. Freeze as a means to victim blame or mistaken for consent where it like the others is a trauma induced response. With it being Mental Health Awareness Month, it is important we continue to attempt to remove stigmas centered around specific conversations centering Mental Health. We understand these conversations are not easy, but they are necessary BECAUSE SEXUAL ASSAULT AFFECTS US ALL.