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Five Unhealthy Responses to Trauma

Sarah McDugal

People experience trauma differently.

That's no surprise, since everyone is unique. But when we are experiencing trauma, we tend to feel very alone.

We ask ourselves doubtful questions, such as:
"Am I the only person who ever reacted like this?"
"I must be really weak, other people wouldn't feel so devastated, right?"
"Is this even normal?"

It helps to map out some of the most common ways people respond to trauma, so you can feel less alone, and realize that your own responses to horrific behavior are not really so unusual.

Imagine a scenario where your house burns down around you.

While it's entirely possible for this to be a physical reality, I'm using it as a metaphor. When your marriage, your church structure, your beloved workplace - is set ablaze by deception, betrayal, coercion, etc - it is very much like surviving a house fire.

Here are five common (unhealthy) ways you might respond:

You go back and sit in the ashes. Day after day, you smear yourself in the soot and refuse to wash it off. Instead of moving forward, you stay emotionally tethered to the burn site. Your primary emotional state is moaning and bitter and angry. You choose not to clear the rubble, nor do you decide to find new property and build a new home.
You decide to burn other houses down. You recognize the magnitude of the sin against you, and feel like it really ought to to justify your own. You may hear yourself saying things like, “He betrayed me so deeply, it’s okay for me to abandon my own beliefs and morals. I have the right to have some fun!” This may include risky retaliation choices such as having an affair, or cheating back, or doing other impulsive, self-gratifying things that make you feel like you’ve gotten even. Deep down, you may hope it makes him hurt as badly as he hurt you. Or maybe you're letting go of very loosely-held conviction in the first place. After trauma, your moral inhibitions seem to have vanished, but it's because those inhibitions mostly hinged on the sense that other people had moral inhibitions, too. So you rationalize that if your partner's moral inhibitions are rotted out, you're off the hook. Since you didn't hold that conviction as a core part of your identity, you now feel free to act out in forms of vengeance or self-indulgence.

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You become your own building contractor. Regardless of whether you have any experience in building... You don't let anyone help, or contribute, or have an opinion. You dive headlong into control in order to feel safe(ish) again. Maybe the gospel never made a whole lot of sense in the first place? Controlling things gives you a sense of, well, being back in control after trauma made everything feel out of control. So you find ways to make life feel less spinnin
g, by being rigid in the things you can control. You might end up fixating on beliefs, lifestyle habits, exercise, orderliness, wardrobe... And you might not limit this to yourself - maybe it flows over to your kids, your friends, your family? You're not mingling with people, you're not looking at the gospel as a gentle heart transformation, and you're not established in a secure sense of God's love. So you seek safety through controlling things, maybe even by being hyper religious.
You abandon everything. You don't sift through the ashes. You don't grieve the losses. You don't want to ever see the old home site again. This is the polar opposite of those who become hyper-religious. Your mindset is, “Screw this! I’m out!” You conclude that since parts of the belief system were painful, it must be all bad, and you don't want anything to do with any of it. Not the least little bit. You may turn to alcohol, substances, media, or even exercise to numb the pain. Instead of facing it, you're self-soothing and escaping. This is another fear-based reaction, trying to control your environment by saying “I'm going to completely reinvent everything," instead of, “I’m going to weigh the factors and see what God wants me to cling to or release.”
You minimize reality. You don't want to put the truth into words, so you tell people you "just decided to move" instead of saying "my house burnt down". You sugar-coat reality to lessen the ache, as if lying to yourself somehow reduces the tangible impact. You don't want anyone to point out to you that you're living in self-deception. Fear of facing the truth keeps you in bondage to euphemisms and platitudes. So you seek safety through choosing intentional ignorance and toxic positivity.

All five of these are fear-based responses. Staying stuck in any of these phases will prevent healing.

Let's break that down:

>Someone who sits in the ashes is controlling their fear of the future by not creating a future at all.

This way you feel in control because you don’t have something to lose again.
You stay bitter and dull and angry.
You wallow in your losses, because staying there feels safer and more in control than building something new.
New growth might pose a risk of loss again.
So you don’t heal.

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>Someone who throws caution to the wind is controlling their sense of woundedness by lashing out in return.

This way you feel in control because you do whatever feels good in the moment.
You ignore possible future consequences.
You make decisions based on revenge or gratification because this feels more in control than facing the pain.
New growth might pose a risk of vulnerability.
So you don’t heal.

>Someone who defaults into hyper-rigid religiosity is trying to alleviate the dissonance by taking charge of themselves and everyone around them.

This way you feel in control because you are making sure everyone follows the rules to the letter.
You ignore the devastating impact on your heart and the hearts of those you love.
You pressure yourself and others to conform because this feels more in control than leaving anything to chance.
New growth might pose a risk of individuality and require trust.
So you don't heal.

>Someone who tosses everything out completely is trying to make sense of things by embracing an entirely new identity.

This way you feel in control because everything is new and shiny; none of the old rules apply.
You ignore the fact that there might have been some good mixed in with the old things.
You turn your back on anything that remotely reminds you of the way things used to be because this feels more in control than doing the hard work of sifting through what was actually healthy and what was actually toxic.
New growth might make you critically analyze all the elements of your past and that's too scary.
So you don't heal.

>Someone who refuses to acknowledge the truth is trying to avoid more pain by pretending it's not so bad.

This way you feel in control because you've decided what you will and won't accept as real.
You ignore the fact that truth is guaranteed to sneak up on you and explode in your face sometime later.
You prefer living in a bubble of your own creation, rejecting the responsibility of doing the hard work or even acknowledging that any work needs to be done.
New growth might require an honest assessment of just how bad it is, and you find that terrifying.
So you don't heal.

I’m not condemning you for struggling with any or several of these. Each one is a very common response to trauma.

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This doesn't mean it's never helpful to sit and grieve, or to make bold new decisions, or to act assertively, or to cut ties with damaging social circles, or to choose positive thinking.

There are absolutely times when the next right thing includes changing environments, reassessing belief systems, or removing yourself from toxicity.

But problems arise when any of these approaches are taken to extreme, or used as a substitute for post-trauma growth.

If you throw out your entire belief structure, then you are refusing to take a healthy approach to sift through what was good and what was unhealthy. You can throw the baby out with the bathwater either by running away completely or becoming hyper religious.

Both are extreme responses.

Both are fear-based, control-based, possibly even addiction-based because they’re allowing you to sidestep the necessary work of looking fear and pain in the eyes and working through the messy process of actual healing.

Both fear and control responses operate on a foundation of black-and-white thinking. It’s either all, or nothing.

These five responses are rooted in what we call a fixed mindset. “I can’t change anything so I’m going to wallow.”
“I can’t change anything so I'm going to run away.”
“I can’t change anything so I’m going to control everything.”
“I can’t change anything so I’m going to just live in the moment.”

All are expressions of a fixed mindset.

See next article for Part 2: A Healthy Response to Trauma