What is TRAUMA?

Dictionaries define trauma as “a disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from mental or emotional stress or physical injury”. That's not the same as traumatic physical injury. The big difference is one is the injury and the other is the emotional “state” you are left in.

That is more powerful than it might appear. For example, a very well documented syndrome is psychogenic dwarfism. These are children so traumatized and neglected that they don't grow! They don't produce growth hormones at normal levels and when placed on good diets, they can't even take in all of the nutrients they need. Would you be surprised to learn that if they develop close, healthy relationships they magically start growing again? It was only their mental state, after all. For more information on the effects of stress, see Why Zebra's Don't Get Ulcers" by Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky.

Sometimes I think it would be easier if trauma always had such extreme physical expression. Then we could point and say "see what it did to me!" Most of the time it is more subtle. It distorts everything we experience in subtle, often subconscious, ways. The distortions sabotage all of our relationships and interfere with our decisions.

Humans need to understand why? It is how we predict what will happen next and how we know we are safe. We look for patterns so we can identify a pattern we can rely on. The more inconsistent and unexpected the painful event, the worse it is. We learn a new pattern that simply can't coexist with the world as it should be. And we never forget that pattern. Even if it hides deep in our subconscious it can be triggered and twist our mind in painful and vulnerable ways or send us into inexplicable panic. The "triggers" don't go away on their own.

When the painful events are repeated and are senseless, the trauma can be severe. This happens often to children, but of course, no one could live for months in a war zone with friends dying in your arms or mortar rounds falling unpredictablye into camp or IEDs destroying vehicles in your convoy with out being effected. Mix this with the raging hormones of young soldiers and we can add sexual trauma to the lasting impact of war.

Whether your distorted patterns live as subconscious triggers or take form as alters, the goal of trauma recovery is to see through those distortions so they no longer rule your life. Life Beyond Trauma Conferences bring together a diverse group of speakers to share the tools and techniques that have helped many people recover their lives. Just as important, the conferences bring together survivors in a supportive and experienced community to provide a critical piece in your recovery puzzle.