In our project, the concepts of stress, anxiety and trauma need to be defined since they often are interrelated, although falsely, because they are distinct emotions/phenomenons. Understanding the difference between those reactions is essential to begin a journey to cope with these emotions. Stress and anxiety are responses that happen very often when we must face a challenge. On the other hand, trauma involves a deeper and more lasting effect on the human psyche and its system.
Stress is the body’s way to respond to psychological and physiological demands that exceed our coping abilities. Those demands may be internal or external based on what we are facing. For example, if the body is facing an imminent threat to its safety (an exam, conflicts, etc.) it will activate itself to react. This is an external demand. An internal demand is something that comes from within oneself, such as the fear of failure, guilt, and other internal feelings that we put on ourselves. Those demands activate the sympathetic nervous system and activate the release of adrenaline and other hormones. These hormones help the body to respond to the threat it detected and activate the “fight or flight” response. The body prepares itself to either fight the danger or flee the danger. As mentioned by the American Psychological Association (APA), short term stress can be beneficial because it enhances our performance, and it allows us to react quickly and meet deadlines. However, stress is only beneficial in short periods of time, because if stress becomes chronic, which means that it lasts for a long period of time, it might create a feeling of exhaustion or create multiple health problems affecting sleep, the immune system, and others. We can then conclude that stress is not necessarily harmful, but it is how long it lasts that determines if it is harmful or not for the body and the person’s well-being.
Anxiety, unlike stress, is tied to a sustained feeling of fear or apprehension that exists even though there is no immediate threat. While anxious the body always tries to predict what is going to happen and imagines the worst possible outcomes, which switches the mind off and focuses completely on what could happen. It is an over activation of the body’s stress mechanism that was mentioned prior to this. This overreaction is accompanied by excessive worrying, uneasiness and difficulty to concentrate. To summarize anxiety, we can call it the mind’s anticipation of danger rather than the reaction. While in an anxious state individuals always are on high alert and in a “what if” state of mind. For example, what if I she doesn’t like me anymore or what if I fail this test. Similar to stress, anxiety can be acceptable in some cases, because it helps the body to be vigilant (be knowledgeable of risks) or help with preparation for an event for example. Once again, if it consumes the body, anxiety becomes a chronic disease which interferes with day-to-day life (no concentration and inaptitude to rationalize events) and might cause disorders. What we can conclude is that anxiety is a projection, where as stress is a reaction to what’s happening right now.
Trauma is fundamentally different from both symptoms mentioned before. It is a feeling that happens when a person is exposed to an event so disturbing that it overwhelms the brain which makes it incapable of processing the event that just happened and lets it linger on for life. Those events might be sexual abuse, war, death of another person, natural disasters and many others. Trauma takes multiple forms, and each individual has their own definition of a traumatic event. These events leave the person paralyzed and in a shocked state where normal coping mechanisms, such as talking with someone or externalizing it, don’t work. Trauma has also been proven to be a major factor of alterations in important parts of the brain such as the amygdala or the prefrontal cortex. The amygdala, which is responsible for regulating emotions (fear, anxiety) and processing events, becomes hyperactive and continuously signals danger to your brain. On the other hand, the prefrontal cortex, which helps with rationalization, judgement and decision making, underperforms and lacks compared to the hyper activation of the amygdala. As a result, people who suffer from trauma might see symptoms such as nightmares, flashbacks and dissociation. The body then becomes trapped in a high alert state even after the immediate threat or event has disappeared long ago. That is what makes trauma more of a long-term disruption of the nervous system as a whole and not just an emotional reaction like stress or anxiety.
What is a traumatic event? A traumatic event can have multiple shapes, but the consensus is that it is an event that portrays actual death, injuries or sexual violence. It then leads to multiple lingering symptoms and may lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is the intrusion of the event in one’s mind at any given time, avoiding situations linked to this particular event, negative thoughts being brought onto themselves or other people around the person concerned or an unexplainable feeling of irritability and sleeplessness.
How does a traumatic event affect someone? The impact a traumatic event might have on someone depends on the person themselves and what their experiences are. Some people might have an easier access to coping mechanisms with lots of help that can help them cope a bit easier with their trauma, whilst others might feel helpless and alone in their distress. Many of the most common symptoms a person might have to deal with while suffering from a traumatic event are exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation, numbness, dissociation and physical arousal. Most of these responses are common and are “socially acceptable”, but a more severe case of trauma may include long periods of distress with little to no calm or resting periods, severe dissociation and intense intrusive recollections. We can split into 4 major sections how someone may feel in the aftermath of a traumatic event.
One may suffer heavy emotional consequences from the traumatic event, but these reactions vary with the individual’s sociocultural history and past experiences. In many cases anger, fear and sadness are among the more “natural” emotions that may surface. However, some people may have difficulty identifying what feelings are overwhelming them, because they have never had experiences with such heavy emotional significance. These people may associate these emotions with the traumatic event leading them to believe that emotional expression is too dangerous.
Furthermore, some people may experience emotional numbness following a traumatic experience. Numbing is a reaction of the body to the unbearable weight of the emotions. They then become detached from thoughts and memories and acting on their own. The U.S department of health and research conducted an interview on a young woman who had a record of 7 years of alcoholism and had been sexually abused in her past life. The woman, when asked about what she felt about her sexual abuse, was completely numb and felt no typical reactions such as sadness, fear, or even anger. We just have to take in consideration that some people may be living their trauma differently and it’s not because they don’t show basic emotions that they are completely fine. This is a severe misconception a lot of professionals come to when they diagnose patients because they don’t have a stereotypical reaction to trauma.
Additionally, some people, in rare cases, might experience physical pains or disturbances. Some of the more common physical problems that we can notice on a traumatized person are lack of sleep or disorders with the stomach, respiratory system and skin. Some patients may also have a tendency to cause harm to their own body because of the overwhelming weight of the trauma, though this behaviour is in big parts influenced by how the person behaves and their past experiences with self harm. To link back to the sleep disturbances, they are generally accompanied with hyper vigilance. This reaction is the body’s way to always be ready to any imminent threat. This disorder is supposed to be a protective mechanism to react to trauma, but it can become detrimental very quickly. It may cause interferences in someone’s day-to-day life. For example, it can lead to an overreaction of the body to a situation that is not as dangerous as the person might interpret it.
Finally, a person suffering from trauma can experience alterations in their cognitions. A traumatic event is so sudden that it changes the very basis of one’s beliefs. For example, someone that has been sexually abused in the past may think that every person is bad and therefore be scared to even leave their house in fear that a simple stranger may endanger them. The person’s perception of what is or isn’t safe becomes eroded and they may never trust whatever happened to them (abuse, accident, object related to trauma).
It is important to understand clearly what trauma is because it can take many shapes and not every form of trauma is treated the same way. Understanding a traumatic event helps both the person affected by it and the people trying to help them, having information on what trauma is and how it affects someone can help with painting a complete picture of the person’s problem going straight to the root and understanding its foundation. Understanding someone’s past and present experiences and even your own experiences can help to reflect on what happened and rationalize the event, even though it may seem impossible. Plus, someone trying to help someone understand their background can help the helper understand a person’s personality and what their symptoms may be. To summarize, understanding the origin of one’s trauma and how in can affect them simplifies the approach to treating and listening to them.