Understanding Reactions to Trauma
As a survivor of child sexual abuse (CSA), you have likely experienced trauma that has impacted your life in one way or another. This series is designed specifically for adult CSA survivors to provide tools that will assist with your healing journey.
Throughout the series, we'll explore a number of topics and materials. It is important to begin this week's content with a reminder that none of the following information is meant to provide a clinical diagnosis. If you are actively in crisis and/or need more support than the information we provide in this series, we strongly encourage you to reach out to a licensed mental health professional or the National Sexual Assault Hotline. You are not alone.
Support specialists are standing by 24/7.
What is child sexual abuse?
Child sexual abuse (CSA) is when someone harms a minor, a person under the age of 18, through sexual and/or grooming behaviors. It is important to be clear that, at no point, can a child consent to any form of sexual activity or sexual advances. Whenever this kind of abuse occurs, it is never the fault of the child experiencing it.
Sexual and grooming behaviors can include:
- Exhibitionism.
- Exposing oneself to a minor.
- Fondling.
- Gaining access to and isolating the minor.
- Trust development and keeping secrets.
- Desensitization to touch and discussion of sexual topics.
- Masturbation in the presence of a minor or forcing the minor to masturbate.
- Obscene phone calls, text messages, or digital interaction.
- Producing, owning, sharing pornographic images or pornographic movies of children.
- Sex/intercourse of any kind with a minor, including vaginal, oral, or anal.
- Sex trafficking.
- The attempt by abusers to make their inappropriate behaviors seem normal.
- Any other sexual conduct that is harmful to a child's mental, emotional, or physical welfare.
What is trauma?
Trauma is a response to a distressing event (or a series of events) like a car accident, rape, or natural disaster that leads you to feel unsafe, even after the incident has ended. Oftentimes, trauma leaves you with feelings of grief, confusion, shock, denial, shame, and/or depression. Because you can develop symptoms at different points in time, your trauma can affect you for days, or even months. While these feelings are natural, addressing the emotional reactions and healing from trauma can take some time.
How does the brain react during a traumatic event?
When the body experiences trauma, the brain jumps into action to protect you and the emotional portion of your brain takes over. Trauma can cause you to react in ways you logically know might not produce the best outcome, but you often do not have control over the response.
When the amygdala, which stores the trauma response and memory in the brain, is activated during a traumatic event, it disrupts and interferes with the hippocampus. Because the hippocampus is the part of the brain that stores long-term memories, when you attempt to recall the traumatic event(s), you might have difficulty and only remember bits and pieces of the event(s). It is also possible that your memories may not be recalled in the order in which they actually happened. This is known as fragmented memory.
Though it can feel confusing, having fragmented memories is a completely normal response to a traumatic event.
The way you respond in the face of traumatic events looks different for everyone. There is no right way or wrong way to respond to trauma. In general, there are three different ways that the body responds to traumatic events —fight, flight, and freeze. These are well known and common trauma responses.
The fight or flight response is a “response to an acute threat to survival that is marked by physical changes, including nervous and endocrine system changes, that prepare a human or an animal to react or to retreat” (Britannica, 2019) in the face of an imminent threat. During a fight response, you may take action to eliminate the danger. Examples can include physically fighting, scratching, pushing, screaming, and/or struggling to get away. During a flight response, you may run, hide, or back away.
During a freeze response, the nervous system is activated and the body becomes immobilized. This reflexive response can happen when you are unable or you believe you are unable to escape a dangerous situation. It's a response that has evolved over millions of years, and all mammals can experience this type of response.
The fact that you couldn't move does not mean that you did anything wrong, that you wanted the assault to happen, that you are weak, or that you deserved what happened to you because you didn't fight back. In these instances, your brain went into extreme survival mode. This response is the brain's way of attempting to protect you from experiencing additional harm.
What are common reactions to trauma?
It is normal to be impacted by trauma through strong emotional and physical reactions following the traumatic event(s). There are many different ways a body can react to trauma, which can vary from person to person. Some of these reactions include triggers and flashbacks, dissociation, substance use, self-harm, and/or suicidal thoughts. These reactions are communications from the body and are often both distressing and tiring, as the trauma feels like it is happening again.
Reactions look different for everyone and there is no right way or wrong way to respond in the face of trauma.
Triggers
A trigger is a reaction to a stimulus that prompts a memory of a trauma or a particular segment of the traumatic event(s). Some triggers can be identified, whereas others are subtle and almost unnoticeable, often catching you off guard.
A trigger can represent a previously endured moment that acts as a reminder of the traumatic event: a person, a noise, a smell, a location, temperature, physical sensations, or a visual scene. A trigger can also be associated with a holiday, the season of year, a birthday, or a time of day.
Flashbacks
A flashback is the memory of a past trauma, where you often re-experience the event as if it were actually happening again. A flashback may be very brief and can bring up a snapshot or scene of the trauma that intrudes and disrupts daily activities.
Sometimes, flashbacks happen out of the blue, whereas other flashbacks are triggered by a loud noise like the stomping of feet in a house, or the sounds of a person yelling next door. Flashbacks can be triggered by anything associated with the traumatic event(s).
Substance use
Oftentimes, people who have experienced trauma misuse or overuse substances as a way to cope with their pain. Relying on substances may temporarily self-medicate or mask negative emotions in a way that feels like you have gained back emotional control or can cope with the severity of trauma that disrupts daily activities, behaviors, and emotions. Substance use can include illegal/legal drugs, over-the-counter medications, prescription medications, and alcohol.
Self-injury and suicidal thoughts
Self-injury is when someone intentionally hurts themselves as a way of coping with emotional distress. Commonly, this behavior is connected to an individual's feeling of numbness or trying to reclaim power over their own body and is not intended to end their own life.
Self-injury can include actions like burning, cutting, pinching, scratching, biting, or restricting/controlling food and exercise. With self-injury can also come suicidal thoughts. Suicidal thoughts are when individuals have feelings or self-reported thoughts of taking steps to end their own life. Self-injury and suicidal thoughts can be associated with child sexual abuse and other forms of trauma.
Dissociation
You may dissociate during and/or after a traumatic event(s). Dissociation is a sense or feeling of being detached from yourself, your emotions, your personal history, memories, and/or your surroundings. When dissociating, you may forget things or feel as if your world isn't real. You may feel like you are having an out-of-body experience, emotionally numb, or missing chunks of time from your day.
Physical reactions
Some people may experience physical effects in the body as a reaction to stress (also referred to as somatization). This can include bedwetting, infections, stomachaches, headaches, nausea, fatigue, dizziness, irregular heartbeats, shortness of breath, and vomiting. The physical body keeps an imprint of the trauma once endured, which may result in ongoing health concerns.
What is resiliency?
Resiliency is your ability to recover from trauma and adversity. While traumatic events can negatively impact our lives, it is important to remind yourself that difficult experiences can also lead to personal growth. Trauma, like other forms of grief, is something that we can heal and learn from, with the right tools. When you have an understanding of your own thoughts and emotions, you can learn to take control of your well-being.
Trauma survivors can go from feeling like you're just surviving to being able to thrive. If you are currently reacting to your trauma in uncontrollable and upsetting ways, tools like this series are available to you as you progress through your healing journey.
With the right support, you can gain the ability to notice, understand, and feel when you have been triggered and respond in a way that feels more productive to you. You have taken a brave step today toward healing from the complexities of trauma.
For more, check out these stories of resilience from RAINN Speakers Bureau members:
Week one covered the long-term and short-term impacts that trauma can have on the body, the brain, and on emotions for survivors of child sexual abuse. Responses to trauma look different for everyone, as there is no right way or wrong way to react in the face of danger. With trauma also comes healing and resilience as you tend to your traumatic reactions with care and gentleness.
Not every healing journey is linear and some can feel like an upward spiral. Although you may be feeling like you are going side to side, the journey continues to move upward. Healing can be accompanied by therapy, working with health care professionals, and self-care.
Practical Applications for Healing
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References
Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2019, August 12). Fight-or-flight response. Encyclopedia Britannica
Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (US). Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services. Rockville (MD): Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (US); 2014. (Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series, No. 57.) Chapter 3, Understanding the Impact of Trauma. Available from:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207191/
Davis, L. (1990).The Courage to Heal Workbook: A Guide for Women and Men Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. HarperCollins Publishers
Matsakis, A. (1996).I Can't Get Over It: A Handbook for Trauma Survivors. Raincoast Books.
Nugent, N. R., Sumner, J. A., & Amstadter, A. B. (2014). Resilience after trauma: from surviving to thriving. European journal of psychotraumatology, 5, 10.3402/ejpt.v5.25339.https://doi.org/10.3402/ejpt.v5.25339
Rosenzweig, J. M., Jivanjee, P., Brennan, E. M., Grover, L., & Abshire, A. (2017). Understanding neurobiology of psychological trauma: Tips for working with transition-age youth. Portland, OR: Research and Training Center for Pathways to Positive Futures, Portland State University.