What is trauma?

According to the American Psychological Association “Trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, sexual assault, or natural disaster. Immediately after the event, shock and denial are typical. Longer term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships, and even physical symptoms like headaches and nausea.”

How does trauma impact DV survivors?

Domestic violence survivors not only have to contend with extensive trauma but additionally have to combat natural tendencies of the brain to protect itself in order to rebuild their life.

Every survivor’s experience, history, coping mechanisms, personality and countless other factors affect how their trauma presents itself. However, just like abusive behaviors follow certain patterns, we can see some consistencies in trauma responses. The most common psychological affect of domestic violence is PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

PTSD in Survivors

In domestic violence survivors, PTSD can present in the following ways:

• Avoidance: Avoiding reminders or “triggers” of the traumatic event, such as people, places, thoughts or events
• Arousal and reactivity: Sudden inexplicable anger, outbursts, difficulty being reached emotionally, feeling numb, trouble sleeping and startling easily
• Reliving the event: Being confronted by the emotional trauma of the event suddenly and without an obvious reason, resulting in emotional outbursts, chills, heart palpitations, extreme anxiety and other symptoms