Trauma Is Not Just Psychological, It's Physical

Many traumatized people describe their difficulties as follows:

“There is not a single thing that I am not afraid of. I am afraid to get out of bed in the morning. I am afraid to walk out of my house. I am very afraid of death… I am not afraid that I will die one day, but that I will die in a few minutes. I am afraid of anger… I am afraid of both my own anger and the anger of others; I fear it even when there is no anger. I am afraid of being rejected or abandoned. I am afraid of success and failure. I feel pain in my chest, I also feel tingling and numbness in my arms and legs every day. I have pain almost every day. Most of my life is truly spent in pain. I feel like I can't take it anymore. I have headaches. I am constantly angry. Shortness of breath, tachycardia, aimlessness and panic trouble me. I'm always cold and my mouth is dry. I'm having trouble swallowing. I have no energy and motivation, and I don't feel satisfied when I finish a job. I am depressed, confused, confused and always helpless and hopeless. I have outbursts of anger and depression that I cannot control.”

Traumatic experiences are unfortunately a fact of our lives. But that doesn't mean that trauma is a normal thing. Unfortunately, most – almost all – traumas are human-induced. Even a natural disaster such as an earthquake ceases to be a natural trauma due to human neglect. While all of this can lead to the natural result of trauma, anger, it's a relief to know that trauma doesn't have to be fate. Yes, trauma doesn't have to be our destiny. Of course, the surest way to resolve trauma is to ensure that the traumatic event never happened. However, since this is a very broad measure and we have experienced enough trauma, I will first try to explain how trauma works in order to understand trauma healing.

Traumatic experiences are experiences that we wish never happened. However, I can say that it is quite useful if converted. In order to heal trauma, it is first necessary to understand how trauma occurs. When we understand how it occurs and identify the mechanisms that prevent trauma from being resolved, we begin to grasp the ways in which the organism resorts to self-healing.

When we encounter a threat that is way beyond our coping capacity, such as trauma, both our mind and body give some reactions, so trauma is not only psychological but also physiological. These responses are actually responses common to reptiles and other mammals in nature. When faced with a major threat, reptiles and mammals respond in three main ways: fight, flight, or freeze. You may have heard of the fight or flight response from somewhere before, but there is a high probability that you have not heard of the freeze response. So, if we want to solve the mystery of human trauma, I would say that the only and most important response we need to understand is the freezing response.

The freeze response is the last resort for survival. At a moment when we come face to face with death, if there is nothing to do, our body takes over, which is why we say that trauma is physiological. When we are faced with a situation that we perceive as impossible to escape, or when we are faced with a threat that exceeds us, we give the common reaction as humans and animals, the immobility (freezing) response. The freeze response cannot be controlled at the conscious level. This involuntary response is decided by the most primitive and instinctive part of our brain. Our brain is not just a primitive brain. The human brain consists of three complementary parts: the reptilian brain, which is primitive and instinctive, the mammalian brain, which controls emotions and the limbic system, and the neocortex, the human brain that thinks logically.

If we react similarly to animals in nature when a life-threatening situation (trauma) is perceived, examining how animals in nature behave to escape trauma can give us an idea. For this, let's imagine that an antelope, which quickly escapes from a wild cat, pretends to be dead, that is, freezes. While the antelope's blood pressure and heart are racing, the reptilian brain takes over when it realizes that there is no place to run. With nowhere to run, the antelope's reptilian brain takes over and pretends to be dead, that is, it freezes. This gives time to antelope, which the wild cat thinks is dead. The antelope, which gains time, trembles and thaws from this freezing state and ceases to be a prey, it becomes a survivor. Here is the key to healing people's traumatic symptoms: It mimics the fluid adaptation movements of animals in nature to get rid of the trembling and freezing response and become active and functional again.

Traumatic symptoms are not actually caused by the event itself, but by energy that is frozen and thus cannot be thawed and discharged. This undischarged energy is almost trapped in the nervous system. Traumatic symptoms begin to emerge when the said state of freezing and inactivity cannot be recovered. The discharge of this trapped energy is necessary for the body to return to its former balance. We can also compare the freezing reaction to a car that suddenly brakes while driving at full speed. The inner speed of the nervous system is like a whirlwind in a body that suddenly stops working at such a speed and looks frozen from the outside. The person who has experienced the trauma has to release all the energy mobilized to deal with this threat, otherwise the trauma will catch on.

This trapped energy does not simply go away, but settles inside the body and manifests itself with various symptoms. These include anxiety, depression, addictions, psychosomatic or behavioral problems. The purpose of these symptoms is to keep this energy trapped in the nervous system. Because animals can instinctively discharge this trapped energy in nature, they are usually not traumatized. However, we humans are not as successful as they are in this regard. We show traumatic symptoms because we cannot release this trapped energy.

Trauma is actually more common than we think, but many of us don't even know it exists. Everyone experiences trauma. Even if we do not show post-traumatic stress disorder, we have had a traumatic experience at any point in our lives. We don't even notice the trauma, as he can keep himself hidden for years. If we want to understand trauma, we need to understand the primal energies that reside within our reptilian brain.

Maybe we are not reptiles, but we are not fully human until we have access to both our reptilian and mammalian heritage. The secret of being complete and whole as human beings is hidden in our ability to integrate with all the functions of our brain. To resolve trauma, we need to learn to move fluidly between instincts, emotions, and rational thoughts. When these three resources are in harmony, when there is communication between them in terms of emotion, feeling and cognitive, our organism functions as designed. For this, we can begin to understand and get to the root of our instinctive behavior by learning to identify and contact bodily sensations. When our instincts, emotions, and consciousness are united and organized, only then are we complete and whole.

In summary, for trauma healing, we need to connect with our instincts and emotions and be whole. If we do not have a clear connection with them, we cannot feel belonging to this world, to a family, or to anything. Losing belonging and connection drives us into the void of loneliness. This disconnection leads to competition, fighting, distrust of each other and belittling our respect for life. If we don't feel connected, it becomes easier for us to destroy and ignore things. In order to heal, it is necessary to go through the trauma, to shake off the state of freezing and immobility. What we need to get through the trauma is calmness, trust and warmth. Only in this way do we feel complete and whole, and finally attain peace. I hope what I wrote will be of some help in these days when we are experiencing all kinds of traumas.