13 Emotions Connected to Trauma
The emotions that are connected to trauma are many. However, after a traumatic event, these thirteen emotions you may feel are completely normal and don’t indicate a mental illness. In fact, most of them are normal feelings anyone will experience in the same situation.
- Fear – Many trauma survivors experience enhanced fear reactions after the trauma for an extended period. You may randomly freeze, shake, cry, or otherwise react in fear even after the trauma is over when you’re completely safe.
- Anxiety – The feelings of anxiety are described in unusual ways by different people. Some people describe it as feeling like a swarm of bees is trying to get out of their belly. Other people feel so worried about the unknown or what’s next or around the corner that they cannot focus on what’s happening right now.
- Panic – This emotion is described as a fight or flight response. You may suddenly feel as if you must leave wherever you are, or else you’ll die of a heart attack. You may shake, run, and flail around even though you aren’t in present danger as if you are.
- Depression – This is a type of sadness or emptiness that doesn’t seem to go away. You may feel nothing at all, no joy, no sorrow, no emotions, just a flatness about the things you used to like doing and feel as if there is no hope for ever feeling normal again.
- Detachment – After experiencing a trauma, many people revert to detaching themselves from reality and ignoring the situation entirely.
- Shock – Many people who experience trauma also experience shock but not necessarily only during the event. It can happen even in the memory of the event due to the terror associated with it. For example, you may become cold, sweaty, dizzy, and have trouble breathing, or you may look catatonic with dilated pupils, lackluster yes, and feel very confused.
- Numbness – Some people who experience a terrible event in their lives, one time or repeated, will react by going numb and feeling nothing instead of feeling more. Some people describe this as their entire body or just their extremities feeling dead.
- Withdrawal — This often happens to formerly gregarious individuals after a traumatic event where they just stop doing the things they used to and withdraw from their friends, family, and society.
- Hypervigilance – This is one of the signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and is characterized by being always on guard for danger. The hypervigilant person is often very easily disturbed and jumpy.
- Disappointment – This emotion is easy to understand because we’ve all felt it in the past. But this is even more tragic because it’s a deep disappointment with the feeling that nothing will ever be good again.
- Guilt – Even though you aren’t responsible for your trauma, most people feel guilty for what they think they did to cause it to happen, whether walking outside late at night or just being a normal kid born to abusive parents.
- Avoidance – Many survivors cope in life by simply avoiding any talk or thought or idea of the traumatic event that happened to them so as not to bring up the emotions.
- Oversensitivity – This is especially prevalent in those who suffered childhood abuse or other long-term situations that traumatized their mind. If you often overreact based on your feelings and have been told you’re too sensitive, this may or may not be you. But, again, it’s not oversensitive to feel.
It’s completely normal to have various reactions and emotions due to the trauma you’ve experienced. However, you should be aware of numerous reactions associated with trauma as you move forward on your journey to face your trauma and get healthy to have a productive, happy, and successful life.
By Team MITM LLC,
