What Is a Trauma Response?
The human brain is a complex piece of equipment. One of the most amazing things that it does is protect us when we are going through something stressful or scary. Such is the case when someone is experiencing a traumatic situation.
Traumatic events can include situations like:
Car accident
Witnessing a crime
Being a victim of a crime
Abuse of any kind
Loss of a loved one
Job loss
Experiencing war (either as a soldier or civilian)
So, what exactly is a trauma response? Let's take a closer look.
What Is a Trauma Response?
A trauma response is exactly what it sounds like — it's how your brain immediately responds to an emotional or distressing situation. In general, there are two types of responses someone will experience, either immediate or long-term. Immediate trauma responses might include things like shock or confusion. Long-term responses, on the other hand, may include flashbacks, nightmares, headaches, muscle tension, or avoidance of anything similar to a past traumatic experience.
Furthermore, four different types of trauma responses are generally agreed upon by mental health practitioners and doctors: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.
The Fight Response
In ancient times, our ancestors developed a response to life-or-death situations to keep them alive. They could either stay and fight through the danger or flee from it.
The fight response involves defending and protecting yourself. A fight response could mean fighting back if you are attacked by an assailant or trying to escape a dangerous situation.
This response is really helpful because you are doing everything you can to keep yourself safe. However, the downside to this is that it causes your body to constantly be in a state of high alert. In the long term, you may find yourself constantly on edge or defensive toward other people. The fight response can cause you to experience long-term anxiety or depression symptoms.
The Flight Response
During traumatic moments, you'll often either fight through the danger or try to escape. Both responses are appropriate and paramount to keeping you safe. When we talk about the flight response in trauma, we are discussing what happens during everyday life after the fact.
You may always have an innate need to stay as busy as possible to outrun your thoughts and emotions about the painful experience. You may also try to avoid anything that's similar to the past experience, such as places, events, or even people.
The Freeze Response
Another response to trauma is to literally freeze during it. In this response, your body and mind is as still and unresponsive to the event as possible as a means to protect you from it. However, this causes long-term problems such as brain fog or dissociation.
You may struggle with making decisions or you might find yourself zoning out for no reason at all. This is similar to the flight response in that you are trying to disconnect from any memory or feeling that's similar to the traumatic experience.
The Fawn Response
If you haven't heard of this before, don't worry, you aren't alone. The concept behind it should seem familiar. After a traumatic experience, you may try everything to neutralize the feelings of fear and danger that's associated with it. As a result, you may become more of a people pleaser than you used to be and you may try to use this type of response to keep your mood lifted — knowing you're helping other people.
This isn't bad — the concept of wanting to take care of and please other people. However, it comes at a detriment to your mental health because it's just an alternate method of avoiding thinking about the traumatic experience.
If you recognize any of these responses as a result of your trauma, don't hesitate to reach out to us for trauma therapy. Together we can get to the root cause of your symptoms and responses so that you can regain control of your life.