Kimberly Key

A Quick Guide to Understanding and Treating the Three Types of Trauma

Trauma has become a popularly used word. So much so that many have questioned if it has been overused. David Brooks recently opined the same sentiment in The New York Times entitled, “Hey, America, Grow Up!” To alleviate confusion, this article provides an explanation of the three main types of trauma and the very real health impacts, along with some suggestions for treatment.

Trauma at a Glance

Acute Trauma -  You’ve been in an accident, explosion, natural or manmade disaster, assault, and/or witnessed a death(s). The jolt is so severe that it knocks out memory and leaves you in a state of shock.

Chronic Stress Induced Trauma - You’ve encountered multiple severe stressors and traumatic exposures, yet no memory was lost. The stressors add-up and your former coping skills are not working. This is a danger zone for adopting maladaptive coping methods like addiction and anger outbursts—and rupturing immune defenses which lead to disease.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) - PTSD can result from acute trauma exposure and chronic stress induced trauma. It can also be a latent condition that stems from childhood maltreatment. Some conditions and experiences can be triggering and pull a person back in time to the original trauma. Or a person can re-enact aspects of the trauma.

Trauma and Disease

Stress & Trauma Rewire the Brain - Living in hypervigilance, anxiety, fear, and depression are common with trauma and chronic stress exposures. Decision-making is altered and the person is living in a constant state of threat and reacting from a fight-flight-or freeze response.

Alteration Occur at the DNA level -  The complex reactions to chronic stress and trauma exposure can turn on DNA while up-regulating and down-regulating DNA and neural activity in negative ways. Some of these include behavioral (like being more prone to addiction, isolation, and altered cognitions) and others can activate disease.

A Defeated Immune System - Chronic stress and trauma can shove the immune system into overdrive and disrepair. The result is chronic inflammation and an open door to viruses, infections, and diseases.

Treating Trauma

See a Therapist Trained in Trauma Treatment - While it would be nice to see a therapist, a therapist trained in trauma treatment understands the impact a listener can have when a person is recounting their trauma. The key is for each person to purposely relax their muscles like wet noodles when listening and when recounting a story. This can help to avoid re-traumatization and the inadvertent reinforcement of fear pathways through mirror neurons.

Exercises to Do at Home – Journal about the grief in your own handwriting. You can also write a story about the experience to process the feelings. Creating art can also be powerful. Meditation and yoga can also help. All of these activities are particularly powerful as they help access and balance nervous system responses that run counter to the fight, flight, or freeze response of the sympathetic nervous system.

Recipe for Heart Meditations – As you sit and take slow deep breaths in and out, try to access the energy of your heart and feel it open. Fill it with warmth and compassion and let that energy feeling expand and encircle your whole body. Focus on compassion and gratitude for every cell in your body with each breath. After a while, you can expand the feelings of compassion and gratitude for your loved ones, community, and the world around you.

Sharing Solutions for Chronic Pain and Addiction

Those close to me know that many surgeons recommended spinal fusion after my granite injury (when two slabs of granite fell on me at a granite yard). I have resisted the fusion. Many know I have a strong faith and meditation practice and actually experienced a "white light miracle" that left me pain free for months. But then I had a couple of falls that seemed to exacerbate everything. (Two steps forward, three steps back.)

Ironically, I recently completed a doctoral dissertation on sacred healing as a health psychologist (in addition to my prior work in trauma and grief and graduate degrees in counseling & educational psychology and marriage and family therapy). Thus, I know a lot about systemic interactions, the mind and body connection, and how feelings can manifest as illness in the body; and also how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and trauma can exacerbate our nervous system's response to stress. Still, all my knowledge has not prevented my own chronic pain and stress responses. Worse, my resistance to surgery has felt like a whisper against a tsunami of well-meaning friends and doctors who advise to do the surgery. One woman said I was being too sensitive while another keeps asking, “Have you fixed your back yet?” (That is why I rarely discuss it or post about it.)

Social learning theory helps to explain that we learn from (and are influenced by) the people around us. Thus, it can be difficult to resist surgery when physicians and friends recommend doing complicated surgery. Surely doctors are the experts and pain can be fixed. Yet not always. There is increasing research that many of these surgeries can be avoided - even when magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) shows spinal problems. Moreover, many chronic pain sufferers have been helped by retraining their nervous systems through a combination of methods guided by a biopsychosocial model. I'm sharing this article about back pain by Curable, yet the Curable app has so much more for people who suffer from all types of chronic pain. They also have a free podcast called, "Like Mind. Like Body" I cannot recommend it enough. It is so inspiring. People of all walks of life and expertise (including physicians) describe how chronic pain made their world small and how they recovered (without more surgery or medications). One woman said it was like AA for chronic pain.

I am so excited about discovering Curable that I have signed up as both a client and a practitioner. I still meditate, bless my chakras, and seek heart coherence (like Joe Dispenza describes), yet the support and validation of others that Curable provides is huge. It's more than meditation and resonates with my scientific training. I'm so grateful to see this in my lifetime, especially in this continuing opioid crisis. We need more than a pill or quick surgical fix (which often doesn't work or is only a temporary fix at best, sometimes resulting in even greater injuries).

Please note, this is not to say that surgery does not help. Many surgeries are essential, yet some may not be as warranted as we thought. The major point is that we need better ways to heal our pain with or without surgery. Curable also indicates that we all find our own path as no two paths may look exactly alike. It is very empowering, and I love how the co-founder (Laura Seago) says, “You are the CEO of your healing journey.”

Finally, opioids are not the only thing people in pain seek. Many resort to alcohol. Alcohol has a long history of abuse for people in chronic pain and those with trauma and ACEs. A painful and tragic example can be viewed in the documentary, “My Name was Bette,” about a retired nurse who died from extreme alcoholism. I highly recommend everyone take the time to see it. Not only did she experience ACEs, I think it is interesting that she fell down the stairs and broke her back and resorted to whisky when she could not get her prescriptions. In a qualitative study I conducted on women in chronic pain who had a history of alcoholism, I found repeated stories about surgical complications and alcohol abuse and repeated relapses. Only one woman maintained her sobriety and said she heavily relied on the support she received from 12-step groups. Thus, Curable may be an additional tool that can be effectively combined with recovery groups. If you are struggling with addiction, you can call the toll-free Alcoholics Anonymous line at 1-800-839-1686 or find a meeting near you at https://alcoholicsanonymous.com/find-a-meeting/. The Narcotics Anonymous toll-free line is 1-800-407-7195 and meetings can be found at https://www.narcotics.com/na-meetings/. Or you can also check out Smart Recovery at https://www.smartrecovery.org/