Life After Trauma: What to do when the fire is put out, the storm is over, the panic ends, and you wake up the next morning
Life After Trauma: What to do when the fire is put out, the storm is over, the panic ends, and you wake up the next morning
Traumatic events are highly emotionally charged, with so many feelings, decisions, reactions that overwhelm us, and when they end, it feels unnerving to know what to do the next minute, the next hour, or the next morning. Here are few steps to take to find your sense of safety again, your sense of grounding, and to start your healing one step at a time.
1. Find People- Good, Safe People.
Finding people and human connection is so critical to our sense of survival, let alone our sense of safety. From the time we are born to the time we die, we are taking our cues from others around us. We are noticing their facial expressions, their actions and words, how they engage with us, themselves and the world around us. Do they seem tense? Do they seem stable? Are they safe? Is the world around me safe? All of this information we gather, helps give us signals to know if it’s safe to move forward and re-engage with the world.
After something horrible happens to us, finding people who can help us feel that sense of safety, belonging, and connection, eases our nervous systems, reminds us that the event is in fact over, and we can start to focus on what’s right in front of us. We can find our footing again, we can start to reconnect to ourselves, the world around us, and rebuilding what the event(s) took from us.
Not everyone in your world will be safe. Most of the time, people don’t know what to say or do when something tragic happens, and because of their discomfort, say things that aren’t actually helpful. You get to put in boundaries, limit access, and distance yourself from these people. You don’t have to be mean but you can say, “that’s actually not helpful,” or “thank you but no thank you.” Your experience is your experience and as you move into healing, you get to focus on taking care of you first, not what other people need. Don’t erase yourself in the midst of other peoples stuff.
2. Don’t Make Decisions - at least not life alternating decisions.
When we go through trauma, our brains aren’t working at full capacity. In fact, brain scans show us that half our brain, the parts that are responsible for reasonable thinking, decision making, problem solving, language, memory, creativity, is “off line,” dark, not activated. The only part of your brain that is activated is responsible for flight/fight/freeze response. When you’re in this state, you can’t process complex issues, you can’t solve mathematical equations, you can’t learn anything new. You are in survival mode.
That’s why a lot of people described feeling “fuzzy” or “fog brain” after an emergency or trauma. It’s difficult to think clearly, and most of the reason is because your brain just isn’t working in full capacity. It’s keeping you alive. It’s looking for threats and preparing for fighting the threat, running away from the threat, or even freezing.
This can take some time to get back into fully activated/functioning brain so making big decisions isn’t going to be helpful for you long term. You’re going to add overwhelm to an already overwhelmed system. This is why there’s so much information about “making an emergency plan” because when emergencies come we don’t have to think about it, we already know the plan and we get to just follow the plan. Simple and basic steps. No big decisions required.
This isn’t the time to decide that you need to quit your job, end your relationship, or move across country. This is the time to just focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Letting everything inside of you, and around you, settle.
3. Focus On Control
What makes traumatic events so traumatizing, is the lack of control. The car accident we didn’t see coming. The fire that started out of no where. The rape by someone we trusted. The family member who died unexpectedly. There was nothing we could do in the moment these things happened. We couldn’t stop them from happening. We might have fought hard, we might have ran away, we might have even froze. But the truth is, we couldn’t stop them.
When the event ends, helping our system regain a sense of control is so crucial to healing. I can control what I eat, what I put on my body, where I can go, who I’m around, what I watch- at least to some extent. Sometimes this control looks like packing a to-go bag, sometimes it looks like focusing on one important task to accomplish like calling a loved one, sometimes it looks like just sitting or laying down in a place that seems (maybe not feels quite yet) safe. It’s different for every person, but the important thing is trying to remind yourself and your body that you get to make decisions from a controlled place, even though what happened to you took the control away. You get to reclaim it.
Wrapping Up
Traumatic events can be overwhelming, disorienting, and bring a whole lot of stress. The important thing is to give yourself space and time to find your footing again. To not force yourself to go beyond what your body, brain, and emotions can handle. Just like it takes time to get a ship to re-level itself after a storm, it takes time for a human to find a way forward.
If this connects to you and how you’re processing traumatic events, if you found yourself having difficulty navigating your experience traumatic events and you want to find help through it all I encourage you to use this link, and schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation call with me. Let's see if we can take some steps in processing all you’ve been through and how to start your healing journey.
