Trauma means injury in Greek. This means that there is a change between the before and the after and that consequently, nothing will be as before..... the natural calamity, the attack or the war.
As humans, we are adept at overcoming trauma in most cases . But there is a small percentage of people for whom it does not happen that way. Over time, the people concerned feel more and more confined.
This is called post traumatic stress disorder .
Who and how?
People who are affected by this type of disorder, do everything they can to manage it but feel more and more lost. The management mechanisms are that they are trying to manage something that can no longer be changed.
They seek to control the effects they have in relation to the traumatic event and, in doing so, they think about it more and more; trying to forget only revives the memory because nothing sticks in the memory more than the attempt to forget.
They avoid situations in which they might remember the trauma.
Despite all their efforts, they are more and more convinced of the dangerousness of what they have experienced; this leads to an attempt at generalized avoidance: they can no longer see certain films or listen to certain music. They lock themselves at home.
The effect is similar if they ask for help from someone:
- First, they feel supported
- But they are confirmed in the idea that without others, they are unable to manage the trauma.
By leaning on others, they feel a beneficial effect but have the feeling of always needing others to find the meaning of what has happened. And instead of controlling difficult situations, they are very dependent.
They then give up fighting and retire in a depressed state.
People who land in the therapist's office are in great pain but at the same time they have developed a very strong resistance to change. Emotionally, they are not able to "move", even for very small things.
