Trauma

Society is learning more about adverse effects of trauma in the mental, physical health and wellbeing sector. Science is providing evidence based data showing how unresolved trauma can haunt anyone throughout their life in ways that often don’t seem direct. Adults may attempt to forget or gloss over the past. The old wounds have many kinds of physical and psychological effects. Certain events may involuntarily trigger reactions in humans that haven’t been thought about in years: guilt, shame, fear, or anger sourcing from early life events.

Traumatic experiences include physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; family and community violence; natural disasters; wars; and the ongoing, cumulative impact of poverty, racism, and oppression. Repeated exposure to traumatic events without adequate support — particularly from an early age — can have a devastating, long-term impact on health and well-being.

Attachment research suggests that it isn’t just what happens to us that affects us and our relationships. We’re also affected by the extent to which we haven’t been able to feel the full pain and make sense of our experiences. When we don’t deal with our trauma, we carry it with us. The stigma compounds. We haven’t made sense of our story, and therefore, our past is still impacting our present in countless invisible ways. It influences how we parent, how we relate to our partner, how we feel, think, and operate in the world.

Many have carried feelings of shame their entire life; all the while believing anything bad that happened to them was also deserved…