Trauma Therapy
Undo the negative effects on our lives: mind, body, and soul.
Trauma is the emotional response to a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. Whether it was a single traumatic encounter, or enduring repeated events, traumatic occurrences take a serious psychological, emotional, and mental toll on our experience of ourselves and the world we live in.
Traumatic experiences are powerful in that they overwhelm our ability to cope or later integrate what happened into our larger understanding of ourselves. Often we can become stuck —unable to move through or move on from what happened. This can have a profound impact on our identity, on our ideas and emotions, and create negative effects in our lives: mind, body, and soul.
The Triad of Traumatic Stress
We often see the symptoms of trauma expressed as anxiety and fear, as we develop some predictable beliefs about ourselves, other people, and the world we live in. Traumatic events ingrain themselves in the brain and perpetuate feelings of not being safe, worthy, or good enough.
“The world is unsafe”
When we’ve been exposed to a traumatic event, the world becomes a much more fearful place, unpredictable, and full of the possibilities of danger. For those in the LGBTQ+ community, who never had the luxury of believing that the world was safe for them, a traumatic event (whether it happened to them or to others in the community like the shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando) only confirms their belief, and reinforces behaviors that keep them limited.
Trauma reminds us that we are only tiny pieces in a vast, uncontrollable universe.
“I can’t trust others”
After trauma, especially when it is of an interpersonal nature, it makes sense that we desire to close ourselves off from others, in our attempt to protect ourselves from future hurt and pain. When we see the world as a chaotic and dangerous place, it’s difficult not to view others as more than agents of that chaos.
This belief is particularly damaging to the healing process, as to heal it requires that we seek a level of vulnerability in community and connection with others. Nowhere is this more needed than in the queer community.
“I can’t trust myself”
Despite knowing logically that there was absolutely nothing we could have done to prevent the trauma we experienced, that does not stop us from blaming ourselves. Often we feel that we could have been better prepared or should have expected what happened. We sometimes use this to fuel our attempts at future preparedness but more frequently, it incites our incredibly shaming self-narrative. This is especially true when we believe that our identity as a gay or trans person allowed us to become the target of others’ hate or violence.
Common traumas experienced by those in the LGBTQ+ community include bullying, harassment, traumatic loss, intimate partner violence, physical and sexual abuse, as well as traumatic forms of societal stigma, bias, and rejection. When these events occur in our formative years, like for so many in the LGBTQ+ community, they become ingrained in us, and are especially difficult to overcome.
In our discussion of trauma, it is important to keep in mind, however, that it is not the event itself that determines whether something will register in us as ‘traumatic’, but rather, our experience of the event and the meaning we make of it.
The Trauma Response
When trauma occurs, it is instinctive for the human system to go into defensive resources like fight, flight, freeze, submit or attach. Here, our animal or ‘’survival’ instincts take over, and seek to protect us from further harm.
In each situation described to the right, you can see the incredibly adaptive responses that our “animal brain” modifies to fit the needs of the moment.
Fight
Attempts to face the danger head-on when you believe that you might be able to handle the threat on your own. This can be aggression, or even threats of aggression.
Flight
Attempts to retreat from the fight, to run or hide which may occur after recognizing that attempts to fight would be futile.
Freeze
Attempts by your subconscious mind to help deal with the threat through dissociation or “checking out” mentally. Others may call this a “collapse” response.
Submit
When attempts to fight or flee do not appear to be possible, you may find yourself (out of self-preservation) submitting and complying with the demands of your attacker.
Attach
In situations of long-term abuse, your animal brain still plays tricks. Rather than adopting a realistic view of what happened, you may convince yourself that the abuse is in reality a form of love.
Again, these are natural adaptations to danger. They become a problem, though, when these trauma responses are triggered by something that is not life-threatening and yet our internal alarm system reacts to the trigger as if it is. This often happens after an initial experience with trauma leads us to feel tense and ‘on edge’ and more likely to fall into patterns of these triggers and our responses.
Post-Traumatic Stress
Post-traumatic stress can be caused by one specific traumatic event or by a distressing experience that occurs repeatedly over a period of time, which is referred to as complex trauma. Even smaller traumatic events from childhood can significantly affect the way we react as adults.
Single Event Trauma
An exaggerated trauma response may occur after just a one-time/single event such as a car accident, a natural disaster and even a sexual assault. These are the events that we most commonly associate with a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder diagnosis, as often symptoms such as flashbacks and nightmares occur even long after the event took place. Some examples of incidents leading to a traumatic reaction include being the victim of a crime, being present during a school shooting, or being sexually assaulted.
Prolonged/ Complex Trauma
Situations of repeated offenses or prolonged family violence lead to an experience of complex trauma that is ongoing or chronic in nature. This could involve physical, sexual and emotional abuse within the family context, as well as witnessing violence in the home between caregivers. Not to be overlooked either is the experience of childhood neglect.
This type of trauma may have more severe and persistent effects as it disrupts the process of trust, self-esteem, and identity building, and leads people to feel shameful and unable to effectively regulate their emotions.
Historical/ Intergenerational Trauma
On an individual and community level, there is additionally the potential for trauma responses to be passed down generationally. Affected individuals develop psychological or emotional difficulties based on communication about the direct experiences of others in the community, or through more subtle, indirect means.
In this way, survival coping skills that were once adaptive are repeated as patterns in younger generations where that way of relating to the world is no longer helpful.
Not surprisingly, this can affect entire communities, cultural groups and generations.
Get the help you need.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the psychological condition associated with traumatic stress, although exposure is not always associated with a diagnosis. Depending on each individual’s coping and survival skills and ability to regulate, they may not go on to develop PTSD.
Although symptoms vary from person to person and can range from mild to debilitating, these three main factors are necessary for a formal diagnosis of PTSD:
Reliving of the traumatic events
Avoidance of the reminders of the event
Increased arousal as a result of the event.
In this case, the symptoms are ongoing and become the organizing principle of the person’s life. When these symptoms are present, they interfere significantly with quality of life and can be very debilitating.
Many LGBTQ+ individuals experience more than one hate crime in their life…
…and more often than not, they experience many. The world continues to be an unsafe place for those in the LGBTQ+ community, not just the posing threat of discrimination, but also overt acts of violence fueled by homophobia or transphobia.
Trauma in the LGBTQ+ community
This begins at school age with bullying and carries on throughout life with more extreme forms of physical violence. Even mass attacks against the LGBTQ+ community like the Pulse Nightclub shootings have the effect of traumatizing or re-traumatizing individuals.
Many LGBTQ+ teens have been physically or sexually abused, taken advantage of, and find themselves homeless and without the support of their families.
All these experiences, whether they occurred in middle school or in your adult life, are incredibly traumatic and pave the way for a multitude of mental health concerns, like anxiety and depression, and get in the way of ultimate wellbeing.
When this has been your experience throughout life, of course it can be difficult to open up or really feel ‘safe’ being who you are.
Trauma Treatment
We know that trauma affects the whole person; mind, body and spirit —therefore recovery also has to also take into consideration the person as a whole and the specific needs of the traumatized individual. Through nurturing healthy relationships (starting with the therapeutic relationship), attending to basic physical needs like sleep, nutrition and housing, as well as the physical stores of trauma within the body, people have a greater opportunity to heal from their overwhelming experiences.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy
In addition to more traditional approaches, I also offer EMDR therapy which can be especially helpful and healing to those with all different types of trauma. By utilizing this powerful therapy that moves trauma through and out of the brain, I can help you to embody a more positive view of yourself and find peace.
In an EMDR session, through the process of bilateral stimulation (side-to-side eye movements), we will engage both hemispheres of the brain while you focus on and recall particular distressing memories. This process helps to lessen the power and influence of these “stuck” memories and allows you to move forward in healthy ways.
