Does this scenario sound familiar to you? You are on your way  home from work and you decide you want to take the subway home. As you enter the subway entrance, someone came up behind you, push you down to the ground, physically beat you, and then stole your IPhone, wallet, and jewelry. The cops didn’t find the savage jerk who did this to you and you kept wondering if they ever will. A week later you were walking home from work and you came up to the same subway station that you usually take when you go home. You stop in your tracks and you hesitated to enter that subway station. Your heart races, your body tightens up, your palms become sweaty and then you walked away very quickly.

What the hell just happened there? 

It’s called trauma. When a bad and stressful experience happens to you, it does something to your mind and body where its not going to forget the incident and it will haunt you. The bad memories start to come back when you encounter that environment. For example, a person has been sexually assaulted and there was a particular song that was playing in the background during that time. Every time you hear that song days later, it will bring you back to that incident that happened when the sexual assault took place.  Flashbacks and nightmares are very common in this situation. The effects of the trauma can leave people feeling powerless, sadness, and irritable. 

When people think of trauma they think of a person who is been sexually assaulted, being mugged, or being kidnapped. There are so many instances of trauma that a lot of people often forget such as car accidents, escaping from a burning house, witnessing a crime, domestic violence, natural disasters, animal attacks, 9/11 World Trade Center survivors,  child abuse victims, the list goes on. Some people experience frequent workplace trauma such as law enforcements, EMT workers, fire fighters, military staff, emergency room doctors, convenient store workers. The question is can a person who has been traumatized do something about their experience or should this be something they should sweep under the rug?

If you try to pretend the trauma didn’t exist, you are setting yourself up to a miserable life. Trauma can affect your workplace performance, family life, intimacy, physical health, mental wellness, and your relationship with friends. Understand that there is nothing to be ashamed about when experiencing a traumatic event. It can happen to anyone. The first step is that you have to be ready to seek help from a therapist. Therapists can guide you in moving pass this ordeal and not allow the experience control your life. This process takes baby steps but there is never a time limit when it comes to healing.