Common Responses to High Stress and Trauma

The immediate responses to a traumatic event are physical and automatic. Fear sets off a cascade of stress hormones and chemicals in the body, triggering a fight, flight or freeze response. Rapid changes in the body follow: muscles tense, breathing gets shallow and rapid, and the heart pounds. Time often seems to slow down. Thoughts may be a blur or extraordinarily clear. These changes in the body and brain help us survive.

Common reactions that follow include overpowering emotions such as helplessness, hopelessness and anger. Frequently trauma survivors suffer from flashbacks to the traumatic event, withdrawal from usual activities, difficulty concentrating and remembering things, a feeling of going crazy, questions of “Why me?” and “Where was God?” and so on. The effects of trauma are physical, emotional, cognitive, behavioral and spiritual. An abbreviated list follows.

All such initial responses are typical and natural. They typically lessen over the course of time if the source of the trauma has been removed. But secondary responses, known as re-enactment, are clear indications that individuals, communities or societies are in distress. Re-enactment shows up in the form of “acting in,” which turns suffering back on the self, and “acting out,” which takes out the suffering on others. Examples of “acting in” are substance abuse and withdrawing into work. Examples of “acting out” are child abuse and aggressive behavior. An abbreviated list of these also follows.

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