Difference between trauma and stress

Difference between trauma and stress

When you think of trauma, a few things may come to mind.

You may think of specific events that can cause trauma, such as an assault or the death of a loved one. You may also think of the symptoms associated with trauma, such as anxiety, depression, or physical symptoms.

When someone experiences trauma or a series of traumatic events, they may experience symptoms in the weeks, months, and years afterward. Common symptoms of trauma include anxiety, shame, hopelessness, guilt, and possibly physical symptoms like pain and GI problems.

The stress response is when we need to put energy into something for example, if I know that there are certain things that I need to face and deal with, but I tell myself that I can't deal with it currently because I have so much to do (my job, being a mother). It's all about energy and taking action.

The Trauma response on the other hand, is the crushing feeling. Feelings like I can't do it, I'm not strong enough and I'm not good enough. It is like a give up feeling. For a trauma response to happen in the body, we feel like our best was not good enough. 

Remember Trauma is an energy problem. If we do not have the energy to lean into a problem, it becomes a trauma. Trauma is a higher energy than stress. It is normally accompanied by a body response, like posture.

A slump posture is normally linked to trauma. Trauma response is low energy and no action. So the trauma response always started out as a stress response. It is when we don't take action to a problem that it becomes a trauma response. (because we felt helpless)

2 Triggers for the Trauma response: ( Dr Aimie Apigian)

1. Loo little for too long

2. Too much too fast

Ways in which we can identify a trauma response is

1. A tiredness (a collapse and the heaviness we feel).

2. Posture

3. Body sensation

4. Overwhelm ( Dorsal vagal freeze)

5. Thoughts and believes ( I feel...)

Root causes or a strong pull into the freeze response (dorsal vagal response/trauma response)

1. Chronic inflammation

2. Brain inflammation

3. Biochemical imbalance: copper/Zinc, mythylation

4. Mitochondrial inefficiency (energy production)

5. Traumatic events and early attachment relationships

6. Overwhelm and persistent trauma responses

Vagal nerve

There are two ways that the body communicates through this nerve.

1. Ventral vagal (safety): Running the heart, lungs, muscles in face and throat.

2. Dorsal vagal response: Shut down: Low heart rate , shallow breath, shut down signal
   

So if there is a shut down signal on a cellular level it means that there will also be a low metabolism. So it is not just happening on a emotional level but also on a cellular level. So when we look at metabolism we have to look at the mitochondria (power houses of energy). So if we see that trauma is an energy problem we also know that there will be certain blockers of energy. Those blockers comes from within us. So we need to be aware of that we have within us as resources (nutrients, essential oils, exercise).

Brain inflammation:

Brain information is always part of the trauma response. We must understand how the microglia works. The microglia are the protectors for the neurons. The microglia guides everything. Primed microglia predisposes us to the stress response. So we need to know what primed events happened in our lives and at what age. So there are certain events and emotions that activate these types of microglia and this makes us go into the trauma response (food sensitivity, mold, toxinsns). This can activate the trauma response (dorsal vagal response).

Some symptoms of primed microglia:

1. Brain fog

2. Decision fatigue

3. Sensitivity to light and sound
   

Adverse childhood experiences leads to chronic illness

So we need to understand that the stress response leads to the trauma response and intern lead to an imbalance in the body. This imbalance in the body leads to auto-immunity illness and disease.

Required factors for autoimmunity:

1. Intestinal permeability

2. Overwhelm

3. Self-blame and anger turned inwards

So we want to identify it early on. We don't want to wait until we are diagnosed.

Many people think they have healed their trauma but their body says something different. The only way to heal a trauma response is to go into it and to go through it.

There are certain things required to complete a trauma response:

1. Time

2. Safety

3. Energy (cellular level: brain, immune system)
   

If you look at these 3 points above, which of these three points can you identify with,that you did not have enough from to heal completely? We need to know how to bring in the energy into the system.

If you would like to work through your trauma response or your stress response, please go to my wesite www.yadayahlifecoaching.com or contact me personally. I would love to connect with you.

Don't wait any longer.

Charmaine Snyman

YadaYah Holistic health and counselling

Psalm 63:7

“Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.”

Psalm 146:5

“Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God.”