Hey y'all, what's up? You're listening to heal the spot, and I'm your host, Erin Javins. I'm so glad you're here. Listener note this podcast discusses topics and uses language that may not be suitable for some audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Happy Friday, the 13. Today, let's talk about drama. What is it, how does it affect us and how do we heal from it? So maybe you've wondered if something that you went through before in your life was considered trauma or not. Maybe you went through something with someone else and they had a very different reaction to it than you did. And maybe that makes you feel like there's something wrong with you. Maybe you've talked about things that you've been through in your life and people have told you that you just need to get over it. So what does all that mean? Well. Trauma. Is individual. It's different for every single person. Samsung the substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which is a division of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Defines trauma as an event or series of events that is experienced as physically or emotionally harmful and has lasting adverse effects on functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being. In other words, trauma is the thing that ***** us up.
So why do two people have different reactions to the same traumatic event? Or why does the same event register as trauma for one person but not as another? Well, there's a lot of variables that affect how people react to different events. And. Even to people who seemingly. Should experience the same feelings or thoughts about a certain event. May not because of some of those variables.
Most people think of major events in regards to trauma, like abuse, natural disasters, sexual assault, loss of a loved one. But trauma doesn't always stem from major events. Because it's individual and it's different for everyone. Umm. There's no way to determine what is or isn't trauma for another person. It's really based on how it. Is received in their own brain and body. So for example, while this would literally not even bleep on my radar. Based on my husband's reaction and his Call of Duty buddies reactions, the removal of shipment 24/7 and its impact on the camo grinders may very well be a traumatic event for some of them. I mean, they've literally been talking about this **** for days. I'm trying to support them, but it's really a challenge.
All right. OK, so now the ****** ** thing has happened. What happens now? Well. There are trauma responses, which is literally the way that our bodies and brain respond to trauma. We used to say that there were four of them, but it's generally accepted that there are five. Their fight, fight, freeze, flop and friend. So fight, when we think about a physical assault like a sexual assault or domestic violence, is literally fighting for your life. You're trying to beat the brakes off of that *****. Fight is that you're trying to get away, you're trying to escape. Freeze is the body's inability to respond at all. You freeze. You can't do anything. What is a lot like freeze, except that it's a very physical response. Your body loses all of its muscle tone and you lose control of your body. You collapse onto the floor. Friend is described in two ways. The first is that you're calling out for a friend, you're calling out for help, you're in the parking lot and you're screaming somebody help me. But it's also describes when we are we have an abuser and we try to befriend them. We try to placate them or win favor with them so that they'll stop being an ******* to us and harming us.
Most people, when they think about trauma responses, they think about them in relations to physical trauma, they think about them in relation to sexual assault or domestic violence or a physical attack of some sort. But we have these same responses in any type of trauma that we experience. It's the way that our body naturally responds to trauma, so. For example, maybe you're being harassed at work. And it is recurring and it keeps going on. And your body is registering it as trauma. You may find that you're having some of these same responses. In response to that event. White may look like confronting the person who's harassing you, or it may look like filing a complaint with human resources or speaking to your supervisor. Flight may look like quitting your job, or asking to be moved to a different shift, or asking to not have to work with that person anymore. Freeze may look like your inability to do anything about the situation. So you your work starts to be impacted, your performance starts to be impacted. And friend might look like you trying to be nice to the person so that they'll be nice to you. Those are all trauma responses. All right, so now we're ****** ** and our brains and bodies are good and ****** **. And now what happens? Well, now we
have to learn to identify our triggers. Triggers are events or experiences that are seemingly unrelated to our trauma in any way. That. Create a physical or psychological response that seems. Very disproportionate to the thing that happened. So you may be going about your daily life and it may just be a normal average day. And someone may say something to you, or you may find yourself in a situation, and your reaction to that situation seems very disproportionate to the situation itself. That's a trigger. So how do you recognize the trigger? It requires a degree of mindfulness. You have to pay attention to what your brain and body are telling you, and it doesn't always happen right away. Sometimes you have to listen for a while. And you just have to pay attention to what your brain and body are feeling and experiencing. So that you can identify what are things that may trigger you.
Trigger warnings. Are a thing that get talked about a lot, especially in the media. A lot of people put trigger warnings on their content. You will notice that I did not have a trigger warning on this episode. Um, there's research, a lot of research that suggests that trigger warnings actually cause more harm than good. It is a forewarning to our brains that something negative is going to happen, so it will initiate a response when one may not have been experienced, or it will increase or heighten a response that may not have been as severe as it would have been without the trigger warning. No one is responsible for your triggers but you. It requires you to do the self work, to be able to identify what things trigger you and how you react to them. To be able to learn to control your reactions so that you can heal from the trauma. It is a huge part of a healing process.
Yeah, you're not responsible for the ****** ** thing that happened to you, but the onus of healing from it. It falls on you because no one can do the work for you but you.
And speaking appealing. How do we heal after trauma? Well. Recovering from trauma happens in stages. The first stage is literally focused on safety. If your trauma is in regards to physical trauma, then the first step is to getting yourself to a place where you are safe. The same goes if your trauma is in regards to psychological trauma, whether it was emotional abuse. Or whatever the case may be. It's about setting boundaries, removing people from your life that are not safe people to be around. Whatever the situation is, safety is always the very first step. The second is remembering and grieving. It's being able to process how we think about what happened to us and the language that we use in regards to how we talk about it. And in all cases, there's a grieving process. We grieve the life that we had before the trauma happened. So. Because the trauma changes us, we also grieve for the person that we were before the ****** ** thing happened.
The next is restoring our relationships. Once an event has happened, that changes who you are in such a profound way. It's going to impact the relationships around you and it's going to take. You doing some? Very careful consideration about the people who are around you. And whether they are capable of providing you the level of support that you need. To be able to heal from the thing that happened to you. And it also requires you being able to set boundaries with those people who aren't capable of giving you that level of support until either they are capable or they you reach a point where you are healed enough to have them back in your life in a meaningful way. It's important for everyone to remember that healing from trauma is not a competition. Just like a response to trauma is gonna look different for everyone, healing from trauma is gonna look different from everyone. It also doesn't happen in a linear manner, meaning there's no point A to point B. You're gonna go up, down, all around, circle back again, OK. Somebody's gonna serve you with the Uno reverse split, pull two card and it's gonna throw your whole healing journey for a loop. And you might have to start over. And that's also OK.
Recovering from trauma, being exposed to trauma, being, going through triggers, all of that is morally neutral. It's neither good nor bad. It's neither right nor wrong. It just is. And so. Reserving judgment for yourself. Holding yourself to a standard of grace. And the people around you doing the same. He's gonna be a major part of how well and how quickly you recover from your trauma. Just like with everything else in regards to mental health. Healing and recovering is a marathon and not a Sprint, and I know that that sounds contrite, but it's the truth. It's not going to happen overnight. There's no designated time frame for how long it may or may not take, or should or should not take. And it's important to be patient with yourself and for the people around you to be patient with you while you're going through your healing and recovery journey. OK. So this is what I want you to remember. First things first, there is no trauma Olympics. There is no competition for who has the worst trauma. If something feels like trauma to you. If you have a response to it. Then it's trauma.
It's important for you to pay attention to the way that your body and brain feel. It's important for you to pay attention to the things that cause a reaction in you that are triggering to you. All of those things are going to be very important on your healing journey. Also remember. That it takes time. And it takes patience and it takes gentleness and kindness, so remember to give those things to yourself. And to ask those things of the people around you. no
Dude, you're still here. You listened all the way through to the end. That's ****** and I'm super proud of you.
Just a few housekeeping notes. All of my podcast episodes are going to be transcribed in the show notes to make them as accessible as possible for all of my listeners. I'll also post resource links and info in the show notes. That's also where you can find all the social media links to my social medias as well as the socials directly for the podcast, so I really hope that you check all that out. Also, if you are interested in booking a guest spot or an upcoming episode. My e-mail address and all of the contact information to get in touch with me will be LinkedIn. The show notes as well. So. Go ahead and check all that out as well at the end of each episode.
I am so glad that you were here for my very first episode. You have no idea how much that means to me. This is an incredibly scary. But empowering journey and I'm so thankful that people are coming along with me.
So yeah, thanks for being here. Take care.