Trauma’s Impact on Mental and Physical Health Can Be Really Scary

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CONTENT WARNING: I would like to mention that I am not a medical doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist, or therapist and I am sharing this content for educational purposes only. Social media should never be used as a substitute for mental nor medical health care. If you suspect that you or your loved one are experiencing any mental and/or physical health concerns, it is okay to get help, and I highly recommend seeking help from a medical doctor, psychologist, therapist, and/or other professional who is qualified to do so.


TRIGGER WARNING: If you are affected by trauma and the impact that it has on mental and physical health, this blog post may be triggering. If you need support right now, please seek help from a therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, and/or other mental health professional. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or text "HOME" to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 if you live in the USA or text "CONNECT" to the Crisis Text Line at 686868 if you live in Canada.










    As stated by Bessel van der Kolk in his book called The Body Keeps the Score, "more than 50 percent of children served by Head Start have had three or more adverse childhood experiences" (pg. 352, Kolk 2014). According to Psychology Today, "an estimated 90 percent of adults in the United States have experienced a traumatic event at least once in their lives" (Huston 2021). Trauma is any event that causes emotional distress and people of all ages and differences can experience trauma. While trauma can be life-threatening, it is important to keep in mind that this is not always true. Examples of trauma include but are not limited to:
  • Bullying
  • Physical abuse
  • Emotional abuse
  • Psychological abuse (includes narcissistic abuse)
  • Sexual assault
  • Minor or adult child abuse/neglect
  • Parentification
  • Gun violence
  • Domestic abuse (also known as intimate partner abuse and family abuse)
  • Divorce, separation, and romantic relationship/friendship breakups
  • War
  • Military service
  • Terrorism
  • Abduction
  • Hostage crisis
  • Car/automobile accidents
  • Physical illnesses such as cancer, infections, and chronic illnesses
  • Medical trauma - prolonged misdiagnosis or unknown diagnosis, medical gaslighting
  • Allergic reactions
  • Eating Disorders (ED)
  • Prolonged hospitalizations
  • Severe injuries
  • Suicide
  • Death of a loved one
  • Miscarriages
  • Stillborn
  • Infertility struggles
  • Estrangement
  • Foster care placement
  • Abandonment
  • Stalking
  • Drug/alcohol/smoking/gambling addiction
  • Job loss
  • Lawsuits
  • Natural disasters
  • House fires
  • Evacuations
  • Homelessness
  • Home invasion
  • Incarceration
  • Mental illness in households
  • Any near-death experiences
  • Witnessing any trauma

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    It is important to keep in mind that every trauma survivor experiences their trauma differently and not all of them will have the same reactions. To elaborate more, some survivors are more resilient than others resulting in them recovering quickly and handling self-regulation easily while some survivors may be so traumatized that they experience major concerns often called trauma responses. Trauma responses can harm traumatized individuals' mental health and sometimes even their physical health. Trauma responses can be very disturbing, and it is so sad that trauma can affect a person this badly.

    The diversity of people's trauma responses usually depends on the severity of the traumatic event(s), the physical and/or emotional damage caused by the trauma, the effectiveness of healing attempts, and their exposure to an effective genuine emotional support system. Even when traumatized individuals make progress and come a long way in their healing, they can still have emotional scars. They will never be able to unseen, unhear, or remove sense from the details of their traumatic experiences, especially disturbing images, messages, and/or statements. What happened and how they were treated will always stay with them. This is especially true if they have PTSD or symptoms associated with PTSD. In addition, "over the years research teams have repeatedly found that chronic emotional abuse and neglect can be just as devastating as physical abuse and sexual molestation" (pg. 89-90, Kolk 2015). For example, victims of emotional abuse and neglect experience nitpicking, gaslighting, deflections, constant control/micromanagement, invalidation, exclusion, name-calling, teasing, and being told that they are not allowed to self-advocate by their abusers. Emotional abusers also belittle, lie to, gossip about their victims, and refuse to cooperate when it comes to respecting their victims' boundaries. If the abusers are narcissists, they do not see anything wrong with their actions and refuse to show responsibility for oneself being out of line. "Not being seen, not being known, and having nowhere to turn to feel safe is devastating" for emotional abuse victims of all ages (pg. 90, Kolk 2015).


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    There are many different types of mental and physical health trauma responses that can take a huge toll on people's lives in the aftermath of trauma. As a matter of fact, their lives and health can worsen if they "ignore mental health treatment" (Corcione 2019). Trauma can cause people's minds, brains, and bodies to not "function properly in the face of particular threats" (Kolk 2021). Here are some examples listed below:


Mental health trauma responses:

1. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and unleashed other mental illnesses
    First of all, many people tend to be diagnosed with many different types of mental illnesses in the aftermath of trauma, especially Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). According to the National Center for PTSD, "about six out of every 100 people will experience PTSD at some point in their lives" (NIMH 2023). There is also a "prevalence rate of 3.8% for Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD)" (Cloitre, Hyland, Bisson, Brewin, Roberts, Karatzias, & Shevlin 2017). The difference between PTSD and C-PTSD is that C-PTSD develops due to prolonged trauma (Example: many years of child abuse) or multiple traumatic experiences. Some people may also develop or experience symptoms associated with PTSD also known as emotional scars instead of the actual mental illness itself. Sometimes symptoms of PTSD or C-PTSD may not start to show up in individuals "until several months or even years later according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America" (Huston 2021). In addition, according to healthcare providers, trauma can also unleash Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and/or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) in individuals who have experienced childhood trauma. The Cleveland Clinic says that "up to 70% of people with BPD have experienced sexual, emotional, or physical abuse as a child" (Cleveland Clinic 2022). The American Psychiatric Association also states that DID is the most common mental health condition that is "comorbid" with PTSD (APA 2022). Moreover, reactive attachment disorder (RAD) "is worth noting as another possible response to childhood trauma" (APA 2022).

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2. Changes in brain development
    It is common for trauma to change the brain development of trauma survivors. The activity in certain parts of the brains of people with PTSD either shuts down and/or becomes limited. According to Emma McAdam, a well-known licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) and face behind the YouTube Channel called Therapy in a Nutshell, in the brains, minds, and bodies of people with PTSD or symptoms associated with PTSD, "something interferes with their ability to feel safe. The brain and body stay stuck in this mode. So, even when people with PTSD are safe, their brains and bodies stay tense, they're on high alert, and they don't ever or don't often revert back to their restorative mode" (Therapy in a Nutshell 2022). To elaborate more, trauma survivors with PTSD have a decreased amygdala and hippocampus. The amygdala is a small part of the brain that is responsible for processing emotions and responding to threats and the hippocampus "processes emotions and memories" (Therapy in a Nutshell 2022). The amygdala "also links your emotions to many other brain abilities, especially memories, learning, and senses. When it doesn't work as it should, it can cause or contribute to disruptive feelings and symptoms" (Cleveland Clinic 2023). In the aftermath of trauma, the amygdalas of people with PTSD tend to be on "high alert" and constantly look for and misinterpret certain people, places, and things as threats (Hagan 2019). In regards to the hippocampus, "stress hormones essentially kill off cells" in this part of the brain causing difficulty with differentiating "between the past and the present" (Therapy in a Nutshell 2022). "These changes in the hippocampus can also contribute to short-term memory (STM) loss but the connection between the hippocampus and the amygdala gets stronger. So, essentially, this maintains that fear response over time" (Therapy in a Nutshell 2022). To elaborate more, "all of the midline structures of brains, starting out right above our eyes, running through the center of the brain all the way to the back" are responsible for building our sense of self (pg. 92, Kolk 2015). "The largest bright region at the back of the brain is the posterior cingulate, which gives us a physical sense of where we are---our internal GPS. It is strongly connected to the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC)," which is responsible for building and maintaining memory (pg. 92, Kolk 2015). The largest bright region at the back of the brain "is also connected with brain areas that register sensations coming from the rest of the body: the insulation, which relays messages from the viscera to the emotional centers; the parietal lobes, which integrate sensory information; and the anterior cingulate, which coordinates emotions and thinking. All of these areas contribute to consciousness" (pg. 93, Kolk 2015). As for people with PTSD, there is "almost no activation of any of the self-sensing areas of the brain: The MPFC, the anterior cingulate, the parietal cortex, and the insulation did not light up at all; the only area that showed slight activation was the posterior cingulate, which is responsible for basic orientation in space" (pg. 93, Kolk 2015). When decreased activation in these areas of the brains of people with PTSD occurs, they have a really hard time with "registering internal states and assessing the personal relevance of incoming information" (pg. 93, Kolk 2015).


3. Negative thoughts
    As a result of altered brain development, trauma survivors tend to experience several different types of disturbing, dark, and haunting thoughts also known as paranoia. These paranoid thoughts especially include suicidal thoughts, intrusive thoughts, bad flashbacks, depressive episodes, hallucinations, false memories, All or Nothing Thinking (aka Black and White Thinking), and being afraid of the worst-case scenarios that could happen.


4. Suicidal thoughts
    When people experience suicidal thoughts, not all but many people will act on them with suicide attempts or think about doing it with or without a plan. When people die by suicide, they do not take their lives because they want to die; they do it because want to end their pain. It is important to know that when people act on their suicidal thoughts, they are not in the headspace to realize that there are better ways to fix their problems. However, people with suicidal thoughts do realize the consequences of acting on their thoughts, which is why they feel like they are (mentally) fighting for their lives.

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5. Intrusive thoughts
    Intrusive thoughts are unwanted, disturbing thoughts of doing bad things to oneself and/or other people that the thinkers will never act on, such as hurting oneself or other people. They can also be thoughts of other people doing these things to them and their loved ones without them happening, such as experiencing a home invasion.


6. Bad flashbacks
    Traumatic flashbacks either occur as memories about one's negative past or cause the minds of survivors to make them think that the trauma is happening again when they encounter a person, place, or thing that reminds them of their trauma. For example, if the survivor experienced a car accident, they may experience flashbacks every time that they pass the same location or locations similar to where the accident occurred and be afraid that they will experience a car accident again. Another example is that the sound of fireworks commonly sounds like gun shots to gun violence survivors. The sound of a fire alarm may also trigger gun violence survivors and survivors of fires. It is important to keep in mind that these auditory triggers may also trigger sensory overload in the traumatized community as well as people in the autism (spectrum) community. As for survivors of bullying/emotional abuse, yelling, being talked down to, teasing (even if playful), or any other form of emotional abuse may trigger flashbacks. As a result, survivors may fear that they will lose friends again or that they are being bullied again.

    Certain words, especially names of perpetrators and other victims, and people mentioning the traumatic events are two other very common triggers of flashbacks. To elaborate more, someone may say something that a victim's perpetrator said and it can trigger flashbacks. While sometimes the speaker of these triggering statements can be another perpetrator, there are some speakers who may be using it in a different harmless context as compared to the victim's past perpetrator. For example, if an authority figure tells a victim of workplace bullying that they are incorrect about something, they may be giving constructive criticism in order to be helpful; however, their feedback could unintentionally trigger the employee by giving them flashbacks of nitpickiness also known as micromanagement.

    Objects can also be triggers, such as seeing and using presents from a lost loved one or restaurants and other places that they once enjoyed going to with that person. As a result, survivors may get rid of the items to prevent triggering oneself any further or hide them until they are ready to get rid of them and/or no longer triggered by the sight and usage of the items.

    In addition, parts of lessons, job trainings, and/or things that people say in discussions may trigger their flashbacks and negative feelings and emotions. For example, if the traumatic event that the individual experienced involved violence, the sight or mentioning of any sharp materials, such as scissors and/or knives, may trigger flashbacks and intense fear.

    When traumatic flashbacks occur, the thinkers usually struggle with grounding oneself in the present. Traumatized individuals who experience bad flashbacks often wish that their memories could be washed clean and that there was an eraser to undo the occurrence of these negative life events.


7. Rumination
    Rumination also known as fixation is another mental health concern that is very similar to flashbacks. The close similarity between rumination and flashbacks is one of the reasons as to why ADHD is commonly misdiagnosed as PTSD. Rumination is most commonly experienced by people with ADHD and Autism/Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). During any times of stress and after experiencing negative life events, it is common for people with ADHD and/or Autism/ASD to repetitively think about the details of the situation with difficulty to get their minds off of it. They often describe their minds as "racing" or "head is spinning" when having rumination experiences. After people with ADHD and Autism/ASD experience trauma, it is common for them to ruminate about what happened, especially when they are angry at someone or traumatized about losing someone whether that person is still alive or not. To quote Mike Shinoda, "Sometimes you don't say goodbye once/You say goodbye over and over and over again."


8. Attentional difficulties
    Constant rumination, flashbacks, hypervigilance, fatigue (More discussion about this in the "physical health trauma responses" section of this blog post), dissociation (Discussed more in #9) and difficulty with self-regulation as part of social-emotional development can become distractions. This can cause people with this trauma response to struggle with paying attention at school and workplaces and during interactions with educators, service providers, co-workers, managers, peers, family members, partners/spouses, and the general public. They may also suddenly involuntarily 


9. Hypervigilance
    Attentional difficulties caused by trauma and/or other difficulties can also cause decreased or increased situational awareness or hypervigilance, which is the ability to be aware of one's surroundings and possible dangers.


10. Disorientation and dissociation
    Attentional difficulties may also include disorientation and dissociation. Disorientation is an "altered mental state with loss of sense of time, identity, direction, and place" while dissociation is the mind's disconnection from reality (MSN N.d.). All of these attentional difficulties can cause them to struggle with completing their schoolwork and job responsibilities, following directions as part of routines, and staying organized. People with attentional difficulties, especially as part of invisible disabilities and/or trauma responses may also result in negative judgement by other people who are unaware of the full story.


11. Secure attachment style → anxious attachment style, avoidant attachment style, or disorganized attachment style
    Every person with and without trauma responses has an attachment style. The main four types of attachment styles are called secure attachment style, anxious attachment style, avoidant attachment style, and disorganized attachment style.

    People with a secure attachment style have strong self-awareness, self-regulation, and tend to be outgoing and friendly.

    Anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachment styles typically develop as a result of abandonment, bullying, or abuse/neglect. People with anxious attachment styles tend to have constant separation anxiety and trust issues. As part of their separation anxiety and trust issues, they may have fears of being permanently left behind, forgotten, alone, not cared about anymore, excluded, lied to, and let down again. For example, delayed response times to text messages from family, friends, and/or romantic partners may cause trauma survivors to fear being abandoned again or losing another loved one. They may also engage in attention-seeking (aka connection-seeking) actions and request constant reassurance from their loved ones who they fear will leave them.

    People with avoidant attachment styles tend to avoid social opportunities and shut down when they are unhappy instead of self-advocating their thoughts and feelings due to lack of hope. People with avoidant attachment styles who are trauma survivors may also shut down when they are upset due to lack of self-esteem caused by other mental health conditions.

    People with disorganized attachment styles tend to have signs of both anxious and avoidant attachment styles. To elaborate more, they will send mixed messages through their actions to loved ones by being "clingy and emotional" for some time, and then, distant later (Mandriota 2021). This is due to their difficulty with trusting people, fear of experiencing toxic people again, and calming oneself.

    When victims of trauma with abandonment issues lose something, it often feels like that part of their lives is "frozen in time." They may struggle with moving forward for several months or even years.


12. Fight, flight, freeze, and/or fawn response
    When someone is experiencing trauma, it is common for them to feel threatened depending on the nature of the trauma. During the aftermath of trauma, when they encounter people, places, and things that remind them of their trauma, they may still feel threatened. These trauma responses of responding to what the survivors perceive as threats are commonly known as fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses.

    When someone experiences the fight response, they are fighting against the "perceived threat aggressively" (Evans 2023). For example, if someone gets close to them or touches them with or without intentions of harming them, they might lash out verbally and/or physically at the person due to fear of the person hurting them.

    When someone experiences the flight response, they will literally physically run away from the perceived threat, avoid triggers, or run away from one's problems without trying to problem-solve. For example, if a survivor of workplace bullying gets in trouble on the job, they may call out of work, leave early for the day, quit their job, or become AWOL (Absence Without Leave) due to fear of being written up or fired without trying to go back at least for the money and passion for their career and even to talk to their boss to try to work out solutions because no one ever knows for sure unless they try. Besides physically running away, people who experience the flight response from violence may either "flinch" or "tense up" whenever someone intentionally or unintentionally invades their personal space (Allison S.; Juliette V. 2023).

    When someone experiences the freeze response, they are "unable to move or act against the threat" (Evans 2023). This is also commonly referred to as "frozen in fear." For example, if they are being verbally or physically attacked or witness other people experiencing this, they may not defend themselves or the victims along with staying silent due to fear of their actions worsening the situation.

    As for people who experience the fawn response, they are trying to please the people who are directly or indirectly and intentionally or unintentionally triggering them instead of using self-advocacy skills to stand up to them and be assertive. This is usually due to intimidation and very common among victims of physical, emotional, and/or psychological abuse. For example, if the survivor's boundaries were disrespected by their current or past emotional abuser, they may give in to commands from the abuser or other people without trying to stand up for oneself about their own boundaries. The fawn response is also common among people with narcissistic parents. Typically, "the only hope of survival" for victims of narcissistic parents is "agreement and helpfulness" (Evans 2023). As part of survival mode, the fight-flight-freeze-fawn responses are "activated over and over and over again, and they go from being adaptive or life-saving, to maladaptive or health-damaging. Children are especially sensitive to this repeated stress activation because their brains and bodies are just developing," especially the prefrontal cortex of their brains, which does not fully develop until the age of twenty-five years old (Harris 2015).


13. Nightmares
    Besides bad flashbacks, rumination, anxious, avoidant, or disorganized attachment styles, and the fight-flight-freeze-fawn responses, people with PTSD or symptoms associated with PTSD tend to experience nightmares. Their nightmares can be of the same traumatic events happening again or similar incidents. Triggered bad flashbacks, rumination, anxious, avoidant, or disorganized attachment styles, the fight-flight-freeze-fawn responses, and nightmares cause the survivors to relive their traumatic experiences leading to re-traumatization.


14. New fears
    New fears may also develop such as a fear of the dark or going to the bathroom alone due to past physical and/or sexual assaults. Other fears that they may experience include constant fear of one's life being in danger and constant fear of past perpetrators (still) being out to get them.


15. Out-of-body experiences (OBE)
    Another major trauma response that affects the mind is out-of-body experiences (OBE) also known as depersonalization. OBEs are the sensation of "feeling separated from the body" (pg. 102, Kolk 2015). Traumatized individuals experience OBEs during near-death experiences that most commonly include but are not limited to car accidents and violence. A German psychoanalyst named Paul Schilder once described OBEs as the following:

"To the depersonalized individual the world appears strange, peculiar, foreign, dream-like. Objects appear at times strangely diminished in size, at times flat. Sounds appear to come from a distance. . . . The emotions likewise undergo marked alteration. Patients complain that they are capable of experiencing neither pain nor pleasure. . . . They have become strangers to themselves" (pg. 102, Kolk 2015).

    In other words, OBEs are as if the person experiencing the trauma sees themselves floating in the air and disconnected from their physical body. Some people who have experienced OBEs describe their experiences as seeing someone else experiencing the trauma instead of themselves even though in reality they are the person who is experiencing the traumatic event.


16. Clinical depression or depressive episodes
    Survivors with clinical depression or who experience depressive episodes struggle with various negative feelings and mood shifts. These feelings commonly include heartbreak, devastation, anxiety/stress, sadness, grief, anger, fear, self-loathing, shame, embarrassment, numbness, and feeling trapped. They often describe their feelings as "emotionally painful", "unbearable", "feeling so faithless", "feeling dead inside", and "hopeless." They may also express feeling like they are "going crazy" (Wilson 2023). People with depression tend to be very sensitive individuals and they might cry easily, cry oneself to sleep, and/or be inconsolable.


17. Survivor's guilt
    Survivor's guilt is a common feeling among survivors of life-threatening and even nonlife-threatening trauma. People who experience survivor's guilt often feel bad that they are still alive after what happened if other people died from it. People who are survivors of nonlife-threatening trauma, such as becoming separated from their child(ren) or other loved one(s) with no way of reconnecting, may experience survivor's guilt for various reasons. They may feel bad that they could not do anything to save their loved one even if they tried to protect them. If their loved one was separated from them by an emotional abuser, they may feel bad that they have a strong genuine emotional support system and that their loved one does not. Survivors of nonlife-threatening trauma may also feel guilty for experiencing survivor's guilt since their trauma was not life-threatening and survivor's guilt is usually experienced by survivors of life-threatening trauma. However, it is important to reassure these survivors and for these survivors to reassure themselves that trauma does not have to be life-threatening to be trauma and that people do not have to experience anything life-threatening in order to be survivors. Survivors are people who have lived through ANY difficult life events during and afterwards.


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18. Low self-esteem
    Another common mental health struggle of trauma survivors is struggles with self-esteem. Loving or toxic family members, caregivers, teachers, and/or peers can sometimes intentionally or "unintentionally hurt children's self-esteem" (Woods 2023). They may do this by being overly critical, overprotective, deflections, gaslighting, and "speaking with sarcasm" (Woods 2023). Difficulties with self-esteem can include struggles with confidence, insecurity, self-love, and negative self-talk. Due to their struggles with insecurity, self-love, and negative self-talk, they may express feeling like "a failure", "not worthy of love", and "not good enough for success" academically, professionally, and socially (Huston 2021). They may also set too high standards for oneself even if they are highly successful, such as feeling the "need" to get straight A's on school assignments and exams. If they get a score that is lower than an A+ even if it is still passing or below passing despite their efforts, they may refer to oneself as "stupid." This is because even though no one is perfect, they tend to be perfectionists. Another type of negative self-talk that they may use to express oneself is self-invalidation. Due to past or current emotional abusers invalidating their feelings and concerns with statements such as but not limited to, "Why are you getting so emotional about this?", "Stop crying", "Crying is for babies", and/or "Men are not allowed to cry," (FYI Real men DO cry and everyone cries), they may express feelings of embarrassment or shame for crying and being depressed (Wilson 2023).


19. Challenging behaviors
    Struggles with self-esteem may also result in challenging behaviors. These challenging behaviors may include difficulty with self-control and connecting actions with consequences. Struggling with self-awareness of one's actions may also be a challenging behaviors as a result of PTSD, symptoms associated with PTSD, other mental illnesses unleashed by trauma, and/or mental disabilities diagnosed before or after trauma.


20. Difficulty with social cues
    As mentioned earlier, the difference between hurtful teasing and playful teasing is especially difficult for people in the autism (spectrum) community to interpret due to their difficulty with social cues. So, as the saying goes, it is important to not "poke the bear." Another common thing that traumatized people tend to struggle with as part of their difficulty with social cues is called alexithymia. Alexithymia is "difficulty with identifying and describing certain emotions" (Dolan 2023). The social cues that people with alexithymia may struggle with include "difficulties in emotional processing, identifying facial expressions, and understanding and relating to the emotions of others" (Dolan 2023). According to research, alexithymia is common among trauma survivors in the autism (spectrum) community. Further research shows that "emotional abuse and emotional neglect were found to be the strongest predictors of adult alexithymia" (Dolan 2023). This shows how important it is for adolescents to "communicate with children" (Dolan 2023).


21. Social anxiety
    Along with social cues, people with PTSD or symptoms associated with PTSD tend to struggle with social anxiety. They may be afraid to initiate social interactions with peers, loved ones, managers, co-workers, customers, and/or strangers even when they have knowledge of what to say. Other symptoms of social anxiety that they experience may also include struggling with knowing what to say or talking too much. This is common among survivors of bullying and abuse because they fear being teased, talked down to, betrayed, and/or abused in other ways again caused by trust issues. This can result in them struggling with building and maintaining relationships with peers and utilizing effective two-way communication.


22. Loneliness and social isolation
    As a result of their difficulties with social skills, they tend to experience loneliness. "It is hard to increase the probability of rewarding social interactions when plagued by disproportionately low self-worth, self-compassion, and self-efficacy, and high self-consciousness, self-blame, and mistrust" (Drevitch 2023). In addition, loneliness can also cause them to experience social isolation due to being easily forgotten about by other people due to their difficulty with initiating socialization and/or lack of hope of being able to build and maintain successful relationships.


23. Over-apologizing
    Another social-emotional skill that they may struggle with is over-apologizing, especially if they are bullying and abuse survivors. They may be so used to being constantly falsely accused of wrongdoing and being nitpicked and micromanaged by their perpetrators that they over-apologize.


24. Speech difficulties
    Another thing that may impact their social skills is stuttering, speech impediments, slurred speech, selective mutism, and/or loss of speech. These speech struggles can be present at the beginning of their language development or birth as well as develop as a result of strokes or emotional damage caused by their traumas. These impacts on their development may be permanent or take a while to gain any of it back.


25. Lack of motivation
    As mentioned earlier, it is common for trauma survivors to struggle with lack of motivation. The tasks that they may lack of motivation to do can include many things such as but not limited to getting out of bed in the morning, standing up, motivation to go to school and/or work, completing job, schoolwork, household, and/or parenting duties, and self-care routines. They may also lose motivation and pleasure to participate in previous hobbies and interests. Examples of these things can be as simple as getting dressed, going out with family and friends, reading, writing, listening to music, watching TV and movies, social media posts, and loss of laughter. As a result, they may lose their identity and struggle to gain many parts of it back permanently or for a temporary prolonged period, such as a year or more.


26. Self-harm
    A common way even though it is harmful that trauma survivors may use to try to distract themselves from their negative thoughts is self-harm. Acts of self-harm usually include but are not limited to cutting, nail/skin biting/picking, and scratching. People who self-harm usually do it for self-punishment and/or "to distract oneself from painful feelings" (National Center for PTSD 2022). Self-harm usually starts in the "teen or early adult years" and is most common among abuse victims (National Center for PTSD 2022). However, acts of self-harm such as nail/skin biting/picking and scratching can start in the early elementary school ages as well. Some people self-harm only a few times in their lifetime and then stop while others self-harm frequently and struggle to stop. Statistically, according to research studies, people with "a diagnosis of PTSD are more likely to engage in self-harm than those without PTSD" (National Center for PTSD 2022). However, people with any mental health conditions, especially ADHD, PTSD, and anxiety disorders, are at-risk for self-harm. Due to serious consequences that can occur as a result of self-harm, it is important for anyone who self-harms to seek mental health treatment immediately.



    All of these intense struggles with social-emotional skills tend to be repetitive and can lead to panic attacks, meltdowns, tantrums, increased startle responses, and emotional damage. Any of them, especially flashbacks, reoccurrences, and intentional or unintentional triggers from other people, places, or things, can cause re-traumatization. Re-traumatization is the feeling of reliving trauma caused by reminders of what happened even though it is over. People who are re-traumatized may be experiencing bad memories or their flashbacks may cause them to think that it is happening again. This is especially true in individuals with PTSD or symptoms associated with PTSD. It is important for anyone who is experiencing mental health struggles in the aftermath of trauma to seek mental health treatment right away.



Physical health concerns:

1. Altered brain development causing risks for chronic illnesses and terminal illnesses
    Besides mental health concerns, trauma's impact on brain development can also cause physical health concerns. To elaborate more, the brain is impacted by trauma through the nervous system. Nadine Burke Harris, a Canadian-American pediatrician, says that these "threats can be so severe or pervasive that they go under not all but many people's skin and change their physiology" (Harris 2015). There is a "constant flooding of stress hormones that keeps the body locked in an activated sympathetic state or the fight-flight-freeze-fawn state. It is also known as hyperarousal. So, you feel constantly on edge. You feel jittery and stressed out until you get exhausted. Then, you have adrenal fatigue. So, being stuck in this state of an overactive dysregulated nervous system leads to a lot of strain on the body and that can contribute to chronic illnesses" (Therapy in a Nutshell 2023). People with PTSD and symptoms associated with PTSD are at risk for developing one or more chronic illnesses and even terminal illnesses. "The higher a person's Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) score" worsens their risk for "health outcomes" (Harris 2015). Trauma strongly "affects the immune system, hormonal systems, and even the way that DNA is read and transcribed" (Harris 2015). 

    The chronic illnesses that people with PTSD or symptoms associated with PTSD are at-risk of developing include but are not limited to "low functioning of the immune system," heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), hepatitis, diabetes, chronic pain, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis (MS), asthma, and Hashimoto's Disease (Therapy in a Nutshell 2022). They are also at-risk for obesity, cancer, and other terminal illnesses. All of the statistics for how much the PTSD community is at risk for these illnesses are very scary. According to Nadine Burke Harris, "For a person with an ACE score of four or more, their relative risk of COPD is two and a half times that of someone with an ACE score of zero. For hepatitis, it is also two and a half times. A person with an ACE score of seven or more had triple the lifetime risk of lung cancer and three and a half times the risk of ischemic heart disease, the number one killer in the United States of America. Folks who are exposed in very high doses have a twenty-year difference in life expectancy" (Harris 2015).

    People who experience trauma are also at risk for seizures, heart attacks, and early death. "In the mid-nineties, the CDC and Kaiser Permanente discovered that exposure to childhood trauma dramatically increased the risk for seven out of ten of the leading causes of death in the United States" (Harris 2015).

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2. Breathing and heart health concerns
    There are many other physical health concerns that occur as part of chronic illnesses developed from trauma. However, trauma survivors can also experience previously stated and other physical health concerns as a result of trauma without having any chronic or terminal illnesses. As part of chronic illnesses, "gut and heart health" concerns may occur (Therapy in a Nutshell 2022). To elaborate more on universal heart health concerns, "since the autonomic nervous system organizes arousal in both body and brain, poor heart rate variability (HRV)---that is, a lack of fluctuation in heart rate in response to breathing---not only has negative effects on thinking and feeling but also on how the body responses to stress. Lack of coherence between breathing and heart rate makes people vulnerable to a variety of physical illnesses, such as heart disease and cancer, in addition to mental problems such as depression and PTSD" (pg. 269, Kolk 2015).

    People without chronic illnesses may also breath faster as a response to traumatic stress, which "takes in more oxygen for the muscles" (Evans 2023). Hearts beating faster than usual also known as an increased heart rate may also occur as a response to traumatic stress.


3. Abdominal pain and headaches
    Temporary or chronic pain such as back pain, neck pain, body aches, stomach aches, and migraine headaches can occur.


4. Gastrointestinal (GI) issues
    There are a variety of gastrointestinal issues that can occur as a result of trauma from diarrhea to excessive gas to excessive build-up of bowel movements to constipation. So, you know the saying "so nervous they pooped themselves?". Believe it or not, some people's anxiety as part of their PTSD or symptoms associated with PTSD makes them so upset that they literally poop themselves either in their pants or the toilet.


5. Nausea or throwing up
    People may feel nauseous also known as queasy as a result of stress from or not from trauma. In some cases, this leads to small or big bits throwing up or no throw up at all.


6. Loss of appetite, over-eating, and Eating Disorders (ED)
    Trauma can also change people's eating habits in many ways. Some victims may lose pleasure and/or motivation to eat. Some trauma survivors who experience this trauma response describe this experience as they "can't imagine eating" or feeling sick (Kairei V.; Juliette V. 2023). Loss of appetite typically leads to a lack of eating and some people who lose their appetite as a trauma response may only eat because they know that they have to in order to live.

    Instead of a loss of appetite, some people may over-eat also known as stress eating as a trauma response. Over-eating as a trauma response often results in minor or intense weight gain, which can lead to body image insecurity, obesity, and even Eating Disorders (ED), especially binge-eating.

    It is important to keep in mind that while these changes in eating habits may occur from being traumatized by body shaming as part of bullying, this is not the only cause of this trauma response. Sometimes people are traumatized by any traumatic experiences that they lose pleasure/motivation to eat resulting in their loss of appetite or over-eat for comfort.


7. Insomnia and excessive sleeping
    Insomnia is usually difficulty with falling and staying asleep and this can be acute or chronic. When acute insomnia occurs it usually occurs for only a temporary period of time or for only 1-3 hours off and on every night. People with insomnia usually suddenly wake up 1-2 or more times per night and struggle to fall back to sleep immediately. Insomnia can occur due to fear of going to sleep caused by "feeling unsafe" (Cyntia A.; Juliette V. 2023). Some people who experience insomnia may struggle with falling asleep to begin with and when they wake up in the middle of night due to flashbacks, rumination, and nightmares. People with insomnia tend to be disordered sleeping patterns.


8. Fatigue
Traumatized people may also experience fatigue. Fatigue as a trauma response often occurs from being emotionally exhausted from how stressful their trauma and trauma responses are to live with and insomnia. Traumatized people who experience fatigue may feel very sleepy and be excessive sleepers.


9. Low/high blood pressure and feelings of faintness
    Traumatized people may have low or high blood pressure as part of their chronic illnesses developed from trauma. Low blood pressure may also occur from lack of sleep as a result of their insomnia. Low or high blood pressure from either of these comorbidities can result in feelings of faintness or lightheadedness.


10. Shaking and/or sweating
Some shake or sweat as a result of traumatic stress. It is important to keep in mind that sweating can occur as a result of stress that is not traumatic or other reasons that are not from stress.


11. Neglecting hygiene routines
    Traumatized may neglect their hygiene routines due to a lack of motivation. Lack of motivation to complete daily self-care routines can lead to health problems. For example, gum disease can occur as a result of lack of motivation to brush teeth. Skin breakouts can occur as a result of lack of motivation to complete daily skincare routines. Poor body odor as a result of lack of motivation to bathe and wear deodorant. Hair can become knotted and matted from lack of motivation to wash, brush, and put haircare products in it. People may also not shave as much as needed from lack of motivation as part of depression.

    Traumatized people who neglect their hygiene routines as a trauma response may experience poor judgement from other people. This is especially true if these people are unaware that the people who they are judging experienced trauma and that their lack of self-care is a trauma response.


12. Drug/alcohol/smoking/gambling addiction
    People who have experienced trauma are at risk for drug, alcohol, smoking, and/or gambling addictions. This is especially true if they have PTSD and/or other mental health conditions. It is common for people to make the biased assumption that addiction is "bad behavior" (Harris 2015). This is because everyone never knows for sure who and who has not been exposed to trauma. It is important to keep in mind that some people who struggle with addiction want to become sober and do not want to do drugs, alcohol, smoke, or gamble and do it as a bad habit just like people who self-harm.



    All of these intense physical health concerns as a result of traumatic stress tend to be repetitive and can lead to worsened physical and mental health concerns as well as additional traumatization. Not all but many physical health trauma responses can cause re-traumatization. Both of these things are especially true when it comes to chronic illnesses and terminal illnesses. People who are re-traumatized from getting sick again even with an illness as small as a common cold may experience bad memories or their flashbacks may cause them to think that they are sick with the same or an additional life-threatening illness again or that they are going to die from their illness. This is especially true in individuals with PTSD or symptoms associated with PTSD. People with mental and physical health trauma responses tend to be at risk for increased hospitalizations. It is important for anyone who is experiencing physical health struggles in the aftermath of trauma to seek medical health treatment as well as mental health treatment right away.





You may also gain a better understanding about how trauma affects the body, mind, brain, and spiritual self by reading the following blog post that I have written:


In addition, here is a book recommendation below:
  • The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma written by Bessel van der Kolk


If you are an educator or (mental) healthcare professional looking for Trauma-Informed Care and Education resources in order to find ways to support the mental and physical health of students, clients, and patients, here are some resources below:




If you are affected by trauma and the impact that it has on mental and physical health, you are not alone and there is hope. If you or someone you know needs support right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or text "HOME" to the Crisis Text Line at 741741. If deaf and hard of hearing, call 988 Videophone [for American Sign Language (ASL) users], dial 711 then 988, or send any message to 988. All of these hotlines are available 24/7 in the United States and Canada.

You can also visit The Mighty's suicide prevention resources page by clicking on this link: https://themighty.com/suicide-prevention-resources/




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                                                                     Citations

1. American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. (5th ed., Text Revision). https://did-research.org/comorbid/index.html

2. Barrett, L. F. (2023). The neuroscience of trauma. https://bigthink.com/the-well/neuroscience-of-trauma/

3. Burch, K. (18 Jul. 2023). 7 facts about alexithymia, a phenomenon in which people can't recognize their emotions. https://www.insider.com/alexithymia-meaning-symptoms-cant-feel-emotions-2023-7

4. Cleveland Clinic. (11 April 2023). Amygdala. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/24894-amygdala#:~:text=Your

5. Cleveland Clinic. (20 May 2022). Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9762-borderline-personality-disorder-bpd

6. Cloitre, M., Hyland, P., Bisson, J. I., Brewin, C. R., Roberts, N. P., Karatzias, T., & Shevlin, M. (2017). ICD-11 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the United States: A Population-Based Study. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31800131/

7. Corcione, A. (12 Feb. 2019). How Trauma Impacts Your Body. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/how-trauma-impacts-your-body

8. Das, T. (21 Jul 2023). Childhood experiences that can lead to fawn trauma response. https://www.hindustantimes.com/lifestyle/relationships/childhood-experiences-that-can-lead-to-fawn-trauma-response-101689927824610-amp.html

9. Dolan, E. W. (8 Jul 2023). New psychology research shows maltreatment in childhood is linked to alexithymia in adulthood. https://www.psypost.org/2023/07/new-psychology-research-shows-maltreatment-in-childhood-is-linked-to-alexithymia-in-adulthood-166153

10. Drevitch, G. (7 Jul 2023). Correcting Misconceptions About Loneliness. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/curious/202306/correcting-misconceptions-about-loneliness?amp=

11. Drevitch, G. (11 June 2023). How Family Estrangement May Benefit Trauma Survivors. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/simplifying-complex-trauma/202306/how-family-estrangement-may-benefit-trauma-survivors

12. Evans, O. G. (13 May 2023). Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn: How We Respond to Threats. https://www.simplypsychology.org/fight-flight-freeze-fawn.html

13. Fabian, R. (15 June 2023). Are Chronic Illness and Trauma Related? Here's What You Need to Know. https://www.themighty.com/topic/chronic-illness/can-trauma-cause-chronic-illness/

14. Hagan, E. (23 Oct. 2019). When Trauma Gets Stuck in the Body. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-the-body/201910/when-trauma-gets-stuck-in-the-body

15. "How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime." YouTube. TED. (17 Feb. 2015). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95ovIJ3dsNk&t=1

16. "How Trauma and PTSD Change the Brain." YouTube. Therapy in a Nutshell. (14 Apr. 2022). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdUR69J2u6c

17. Huston, M. (3 Mar. 2021). How Trauma Affects the Body. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-addiction-connection/202103/how-trauma-affects-the-body

18. Kolk, B. v. d. (2015). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin Books.

19. Ma, L. (1 Jul. 2023). How Childhood Trauma Saps Joy and the Ability to Cope. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-philosophers-diaries/202105/how-childhood-trauma-saps-joy-and-the-ability-to-cope

20. Mandriota, M. (13 Oct 2021). Here Is How to Identify Your Attachment Style. https://psychcentral.com/health/4-attachment-styles-in-relationships

21. (N.d.). Disorientation. https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/symptoms/Disorientation/hp-disorientation

22. (May 2023). Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd

23. "Over Again (Official Video) - Mike Shinoda." YouTube. Mike Shinoda. (25 Jan 2018). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk_2NB0RIaA

24. (22 Sep 2022). Self-Harm and Trauma. https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/related/self_harm.asp

25. V, Juliette. (2 Jul 2023). 20 Unexpected Physical Symptoms of Trauma. https://www.themighty.com/topic/mental-health/physical-symptoms-trauma/

26. "What is trauma? The author of 'The Body Keeps the Score' explains | Bessel van der Kolk | Big Think." YouTube. Big Think. (17 Sep 2021). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJfmfkDQb14

27. Wilson, D. (17 Jun 2023). Take Back Control: How to Identify and Tackle Medical Gaslighting. https://www.fodmapeveryday.com/take-back-control-how-to-identify-and-tackle-medical-gaslighting/

28. Woods, T. (2 Jul 2023). When Parents Hurt Their Children's Self-Esteem. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/liking-the-child-you-love/202307/when-parents-hurt-their-childrens-self-esteem

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