Trauma is a psychic wound.
Every person experiences difficult situations during their lifetime, but for some, the emotional response to the experience can leave a long-lasting psychic wound. That wound is trauma.
A traumatic event can change the way you think.
In 2003, working as a contract archaeologist, a drill crushed my arm on an excavation site. One moment I am holding the moving drill to the side, as my supervisor insisted. The next moment, I am on the ground, my arm nearly severed and bones crushed.
I’m told I went into shock.
The pain was indescribably intense. My brain sounded an alarm and went into fight mode. “You might lose your arm,“ it shouted. “Protect!” (opens in a new tab)
I instructed those around me to call an ambulance, trying to gain some control.
Once in the emergency room, between moments of unconsciousness, I begged anyone near me to save my arm. A nurse told me that she did not think they could. They did.
When I woke from surgery, my brain did not accept that my arm was whole. For months, I held my arm against me, certain that if I let go, it would fall off.
That’s the thing about a psychic wound: it sticks around. Forged in danger, the brain registers a response so deeply that even after the traumatic event, the trauma (response) remains.
Later, when I began physical therapy, letting go of my arm and doing the exercises made me panic. No matter how often they explained to me that titanium reinforced the bones, my brain still said to hold on. So I found a therapist to address and heal the psychic wound—to rewire the trauma connection in my brain that was impeding my physical recovery.
Four types of trauma: acute, chronic, complex, and inherited.
It is easy to recognize the trauma in my case. My thinking did not reflect reality. Trauma that results from a single event is acute. Rape, seeing someone hurt, or the sudden death of a loved one can cause acute trauma.
Less obvious is chronic, complex, or inherited trauma. Chronic trauma is repeated and prolonged exposure to threats. Complex trauma is exposure to varied and multiple events. Inherited trauma, a chemical mark left on genes from trauma, is passed from one generation to the next. People who experience systemic racism, bullying, child abuse, domestic violence, or war will often suffer long after the immediate threat has vanished. The fear of danger becomes so pervasive that simple social interactions are shrouded in potential threats.
Regardless of the type of trauma, if a trigger creates an abnormal response you can’t control, you are suffering from trauma—even if you don’t remember the causal event.
It takes more than time to heal from trauma.
Since trauma is a wound, you can absolutely recover from trauma. A wound can heal with appropriate care.
Time, contrary to popular belief, does not heal all wounds. A scar might form in time, but the trauma is still there. A trigger—an event or experience that reminds the brain of the original experience— opens it up again, often painfully.
It takes time to overcome trauma, but it also takes action. Trauma can only heal when acknowledged and addressed. A therapist can help you rewire the unhealthy thoughts that drive your automatic responses to trauma triggers. Patience and vulnerability are necessary to unlearn emotional patterns that your brain decided to keep you safe. The reward is a life of thriving instead of hiding.
Vulnerability is a key to overcoming trauma.
I often wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t found a therapist to help me change my thoughts about my arm. The radial nerve in my arm was severed in two places, so the fact that I’m typing this blog post is remarkable in itself. Letting go of my arm and trusting my physical therapist meant I chose to be vulnerable—a scary and hard task. It allowed me to commit to my physical healing 110 percent. Without my brain learning to let go, my story would have a different ending.