Traumatized?

Trauma is very real but very subjective. It can make you feel crazy and out of control of your own faculties! Psychological trauma is most well-known for giving you nightmares, unwanted thoughts and flashbacks. However there are two other normal and lesser known symptoms. The first is dissociation. Dissociation is when your mind disconnects from present and falls into a timeless area where it thinks, organizes and attempts to rest. Primarily this occurs during a well patterned part of our day. For example, because your drive to work is well known and patterned your mind may take that time to dissociate or “check out” and organize your day. It is actually normal to sometimes arrive at your house and not know how you got there!

However, after a traumatic incident dissociation can happen without warning and outside of any patterned life. Flashbacks occur during these periods. The problem is that many times this form of dissociation can be unknown to the person doing the dissociation! The reason for this is because it is happening during a random time. The person may all of the sudden feel like they have “spaced out” and believe it was only for a few seconds when it is actually quite a few minutes. I have heard of cases in which folks have “lost” entire seasons and even years. Another piece of evidence is memory related issues. This is when you find yourself forgetting being a part of conversations or forgetting pieces of the conversation. People tell you things like “where are you? Did you hear me? I just told you that!”  If you have come to believe you are losing time two or more times a week this would be considered “abnormal.” Likewise if you identify with the memory related issues you may have an issue. Dissociation is a good thing but you can have too much of a good thing!

The second lessor known symptom of trauma is called somatic memory flashback. This is when your body is responding to prior physical discomfort in your body itself through psychological means. For example maybe when you go to a hospital to visit a friend some part of your body may bother you that you had surgery on before. You know it’s over and done with but it still pushes through that knowledge and bothers you anyway. This would be considered on the more normal part of the spectrum unless you can’t shake it for whatever reason and feel that you need to deal with it therapeutically. The more crazy making somatic memory flashbacks have to do with seemingly randomized body discomfort For example unexplained genitalia pain or discomfort, nausea, specific unexplained soreness, etc. The way this distinguishes itself from other medical conditions is twofold. First the doctors can’t find any problem. Second, there is usually a tiny fragmented thought or memory that you feel disconnected from and believe you could be “making it up.” It could be that you also feel “creeped out” by the thought. The key part is that you realize that this thought seems to co-occur with your body pain or discomfort. Research has shown that these fragmented memories usually develop more detail and end up being factual. Research also suggests that you are not alone. 1 and 3 ladies experience some spectrum of this and 1 in 5 men do. It may prove scary but it is ok to “trust your gut.”