What You Can Expect From Trauma Therapy
Helplessness. Tension. Chronic discomfort.
Whatever you endured, the trauma of it can live on in your body. It can haunt your relationship with yourself, your significant other (s) and make expressing yourself, intimately or otherwise, feel frustratingly out of reach.
Trauma morphs your perspective and memory, shaping how you and how you see the world. Whether you feel tense and afraid or suspicious and on edge, trust may feel hard to come by. Do you struggle to thrust the world and yourself as feelings of guilt, shame, may also be at play?
Sexual trauma, in particular, can make forming healthy relationships feel impossible. Thus, therapy is invaluable. Meeting with someone experienced and compassionate has the benefit of providing practical healing and emotional support as well as a safe, trustworthy relationship to rely on.
What You Can Expect From Trauma Therapy
Are you hesitant to participate in therapy? Perhaps you even tried it for a while without much relief? Don’t begive up on yourself. Often work with a trauma-informed therapist, experienced in a variety of approaches helps make a significant difference.
How?
Trauma Therapy Can Help You Notice Your Perpetual State of Arousal
During a trauma, your body and mind experience the usual “fight or flight” response. Your autonomic nervous system shifts into survival mode. You experience a heightened state of arousal.
Frequently, once the danger passes, the victim can become stuck in this state or easily triggered. If you are stuck, you may feel this arousal as ongoing discomfort. Following are a few examples of what you may be experiencing
Brain fog or feeling of disorienting detachment
Pelvic discomfort or pain
Digestive trouble or nausea
Sleep disruption
tingling or prickly sensation in the body
Trembling or shortness of breath
Difficulty with concentration, planning, focus
Anger or irritability
Withdrawal
Therapy fosters healthy awareness of the mind-body connection. After living for a period of time with physical discomfort, a therapist can help you connect your mind and body.
Essentially, Therapy can help you to understand what your body is communicating. Your therapist can help you process the trauma cognitively and emotionally, soothe your nervous system, guiding you towards recovery, mentally and physically.
Trauma Therapy Helps Ground You in the Present
Operating in a heightened state can force you to ignore your senses. This is an incredibly exhausting way to function, however. A therapist will teach you how to practice mindfulness or be present. Without judging yourself, your therapist will encourage you to tune into your thoughts.
Learning to challenge whether you are in current danger, the rationality of your anxiety is often a key focus in session. In addition, you may be encouraged to use your senses to keep you located in the here and now to promote a sense of completeness and wholeness. This way you feel more in control and in charge of your choices and future.
Trauma Therapy Can Support Improved Intrapersonal Skills
Interaction with your therapist can help you develop more rational, productive, and fulfilling relationship skills. As healing progresses, your emotional intelligence, self-compassion, personal insight is likely to improve.
Past tendencies to put your own needs aside will likely dissolve as you more capably identify your emotions and express your needs with more clarity.
In time, you’ll be able to give yourself permission to be loved and accepted for who you are. The work is centered on helping you integrate the trauma help you recognize how it’s shaped your beliefs and relationship framework
Reach Out for Trauma Therapy with Confidence
You don’t have to suffer or worry that you’ll be traumatized by the therapy itself. Your trauma therapist may use a variety of approaches, but the goal remains the same: to help you productively reprocess your painful past. Pleases seek help without shame. You deserve to recover and heal.