Trauma recovery can heighten emotions associated with milestones
Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash
The past several months have been anything but normal for most of us, and several important dates and milestones have passed without traditional celebrations and fanfare. For individuals in trauma recovery, those milestones can stir up strong emotions and memories in the best of times. During the pandemic, you might feel an even greater intensity.
Acknowledging Loss
Looking back over the past few months, we have ushered in spring and we have watched several holidays come and go: Easter, Mother’s Day and Memorial Day. Many of us, including me, have graduating seniors who spent the last few months learning from home without the joy of prom, senior trips or in-person graduation celebrations.
As a community, and as family units, we have found ways to honor those occasions in new ways, but drive-by parades and virtual ceremonies can’t really take the place of gathering together in celebration. As humans, we mark time and express the joy of life through these rituals and rites.
Each and every person has experienced some sense of loss during the pandemic, and it’s important to acknowledge that loss. It will have a social-emotional impact on all of us, individually and as a society.
As this mental health counselor writes for Psychology Today, a pandemic qualifies as a “collective trauma” event:
“As we consider how COVID-19 may affect our society, it is important that we not only consider how it may impact us medically but also what the societal mental health consequences the pandemic may have. With pandemics fitting the criterion for what may lead to collective trauma, it is a reminder that mental health difficulties may be widespread in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
We won’t do ourselves any favors by brushing aside the emotions, stress and trauma responses that this global crisis has sparked. We need to allow ourselves to feel, and to heal, from this current trauma state.
Past Trauma Meets New Trauma
For survivors of past trauma, the effects of the pandemic could also amplify existing PTSD symptoms.
One woman shared her story with a news outlet, saying that the community’s response to Covid-19 social-distancing restrictions stirred up memories of childhood trauma related to her father’s mental illness:
“Because it kind of reflected my life as a kid. My life was full of restrictions. In fact, you know, my life was a pandemic. Every day of my life was a pandemic.
And now everybody else is behaving like my dad. And that never, ever has happened before my life…”
Calls for hand-washing, social distancing and fears of catching viruses brought her back to her 1960s and 70s childhood and memories of her father’s obsessive-compulsive disorder that impacted the entire family. Part of her coping strategy includes Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), also known as tapping, which is one of the tools I use to help my clients in trauma recovery.
For other trauma survivors, the pandemic and the passing of holidays and milestones could bring up different types of memories and triggers. As these moments arise, it can help to have an action plan in place for managing your response. Your action plan might include strategies such as:
Naming the emotion and acknowledging it as a trauma response
Practicing calming techniques, such as EFT, meditation, prayer, nature walks, etc.
Exercising to trigger endorphins and better brain function
Journaling to process your emotions
Reaching out to others for support, including trusted friends/family and support groups
Working with a counselor
Seeking out complementary therapies, such as Splankna and EMDR
If you know a particular holiday or time of year holds triggers for you, plan ahead. Having a plan in place for how you will manage that day or time of year will help prepare your brain for a healthier response to it.
Hope and Resilience
For some people in trauma recovery, the current crisis brings some sense of peace at others’ newfound understanding what it’s like to live with PTSD. As this Vox contributor writes:
“For the first time, it seems, the entire world knows what it’s like to live inside my head. I have complex post-traumatic stress disorder, a form of PTSD that occurs from being subjected to trauma over and over again for years. Symptoms include trouble regulating one’s emotions, difficulty trusting others, and bouts of aggression, anxiety and depression.
It’s a weird flex, but even as everyone around me posts about their panic attacks, I’m strangely calm these days.”
She reports an ability to remain calm as people around her worry about their uncertain futures amid the pandemic. She even refers to her PTSD as a superpower as she taps into her ability to choose her emotional response to triggers, and she’s finding ways to support others through their fear. She adds:
“My therapist used to tell me that PTSD is only a mental illness in times of peace. Our bodies and brains are consistently attuned to war, so we look paranoid or hypervigilant in peacetime. But in times of crisis, PTSD is an incredible survival mechanism that our genius bodies created to help us adapt.”
While her experience might not translate for you, and that is more than ok, what she’s describing is her own resilience. Throughout her trauma recovery, she has learned coping skills and tools for managing her fears and anxiety responses. If you have not yet reached that place in your own recovery, take heart. You have the ability within you to change how you respond to stressful situations and common triggers.
Through Splankna therapy, I help trauma survivors change their narratives, reduce their anxiety responses and tap into resilience as they recover. To learn more about this therapy and my approach, contact me. In addition, I facilitate #HER Circles that allow women trauma survivors to find solace and support within a safe group setting.