2-4-15 Post

Comment/question: Tell more about depression after trauma  and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Response: After trauma people grieve various losses.  There may be loss of loved ones, depending on the type of trauma.  There can be loss of a former world view, loss of self-esteem, loss of personal identity, loss of dreams and hopes, just to name a few.  Each person will have an individual experience.  People will often experience depression, anger, hopelessness and all of the usual reactions to loss. Often a person will go into shock after trauma.  This can include physical shock as well as emotional and psychological shock.  

It is very important for a person to receive psychotherapy or counseling guidance as soon possible after a trauma so that the healing process can begin.  It is common for a person to either consciously or unconsciously make wide sweeping decisions after trauma so as not to remember the traumatic events, not feel the pain or ever feel hurt again.  They may decide to never love again or to never trust again.  Even without such decisions communication and normal relationships may become difficult due to intruding emotions and memories.

Some people can move from shock and grief into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  In this instance avoidance of traumatic memories is not possible. The memories flash into conscious awareness uninvited regardless of what is happening in life or they may be triggered by certain life events.  Often these memories or “flashbacks” as they are called, can totally over ride actual current life awareness. 

A person can heal from trauma.  The earlier the intervention, the more sweeping the approach, the stronger the support group, the better the outcome. The person can heal from trauma and needs to be assisted to know that healing is possible, the worst is over, and that her/his reaction can be guided so that s/he can come out stronger, wiser and more healed that s/he would have been otherwise. S/he will not be the same person and should not compare the old self to the new self.

The pain cannot be avoided with drugs, alcohol, food, sex or any other addiction or crutch. Medication can help but should not become a crutch.  Insight meditation can assist in facing the traumatic memories but meditation of other sorts can become a means of escape or a way of dissociating.  Positive affirmations can assist like angels’ wings holding the person up while the healing process takes hold.  The person does not have to believe the affirmations, s/he just has to use them to retrain the brain and create new neural pathways that can begin to override the neural pathways created by the trauma.  The biochemical electrical energy that the brain uses for functioning can be diverted from the pathways created by the trauma and can be fed into the pathways created by positive affirmations. This will assist the person in surviving and thriving during the healing process and will become an integral part of that healing process.