After the Boston Marathon – The Emotional Trauma

The recent explosions at the Boston marathon may cause a ripple of trauma through our nation.  For those people that were physically present during the explosions, we expect that they may experience trauma symptoms.  What we can’t predict, is how it will impact the people who were not physically present, but watched as the news unfolded on their local TV stations or CNN.   

Traumatizing events, like the Boston Marathon, are events that disrupt the normal regulation of the nervous system. Essentially, they can be thought of as events that catch us off guard, that happen unexpectedly, that make us feel in fear of our safety and sometimes our life and in that moment, we feel powerless to prevent.  

It’s been reported that over 1500 changes occur in the body when we shift from feeling safety to feeling a life threat.

Everyone has experienced trauma at some point in their life. Some have experienced big trauma (car accidents, physical assaults, disasters, terrorism, tragic accidents, health diagnosis and even divorce) and others small trauma (being unprepared for an event, a brush with disaster, bullying) most of the time, we process trauma through to “full resolution” – meaning, in a reasonable amount of time, it becomes a story we can tell without an emotional response. But sometimes, trauma gets stuck and does not get processed through to full resolution. This is can be very evident when people can’t tell the story without having a visceral, or body response.   

Anyone can become traumatized with primary, secondary, or vicarious trauma. This includes, people standing on the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the first responders to the event, the people who only heard the sirens, and the millions who watched it on the news. How the information will get processed depends on an individual’s history, coping skills, their larger meaning of the event, and the reactions of their family and friends.

Symptoms of trauma are never a sign of weakness.

• ·         Decreased social interaction
• ·         Increased startle response
• ·         Stomach/digestion issues
• ·         Excessive sweating or chills
• ·         Increased heart rate
• ·         Intrusive imagery in waking and sleep
• ·         Inability to sleep
• ·         Anxiety
• ·         Depression
• ·         Headaches
• ·         Moodiness
• ·         Memory problem
• ·         Inability to stay focused

Before they can be effectively treated, a person should have their basic needs met of water, food, and a place of safety. Then, adults and children need resources around them to process and integrate the event = people & information.  If after a couple of weeks, these normal trauma symptoms persist, a person should reach out to a trauma specialist for additional help.

Contemporary developments in the healing of trauma have shown to be less medication driven and more inclusive of neurology and psychology.  This includes therapies that combine psycho-education (educating people about normal body and brain responses) with talk therapy. Therapists like myself, who work with trauma, find that when people are educated about what’s normal, they are relieved to discover they too are often normal.  

For additional information:

American Psychological Association

http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/recovering-disasters.aspx

Eye Movement Desensitization/Reprocessing (EMDR)

http://www.emdr.com/

What's Visual is Memorable

The picture by my computer- a reminder to "breathe."

It’s well established that using visual cues is a powerful tool.  People who have the most success achieving a goal, changing a habit or creating a new way of being keep their thoughts focused on that goal. They don’t rely on their memory; they rely on reminders…and lots of them. They use pictures, words, colors or objects that are representative of their goal, and they put them everywhere.

Imagine: wanting to be more patient in your relationship with your kids. You have to visualize it regularly and practice. But life is busy and mostly, you forget. Except when there’s drama and then you feel anxious. Then you practice for a few hours before your brain monkey jumps away to the next topic. Soon enough you feel hopeless and helpless. This is exactly what most people do.

Now imagine: wanting to be more patient in your relationship with your kids, so you pick a picture that reminds you of patience or a color or simply the word “patience.” You copy this 10 times and you put it on your bathroom mirror, your refrigerator, the dashboard of your car, the screen of your iPhone and your computers, your Daytimer(do you still use one?) and on your bed stand. Every time you see it, you’re reminded to visualize your goal. And you see it a lot. You practice a lot. It’s front and center of your psyche a lot. You don’t easily escape it with the monkey jump. It’s in your face all the time.

Before long, your thinking about this even without the visual cues. It becomes engrained in your brain and part of your daily thought process.

Try it! I’ll bet you a shiny quarter it works!

Reframe it and Embrace it!

I was listening to Talk of the Nation on NPR recently and Neil Conan was talking to Ellen Langer whose books include Counter Clockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility and Mindfulness and The Power of Mindful Learning.

A man called in and said that he uses mindfulness as a way to change a negative experience into a neutral or positive experience. He gave the example of cleaning the bathroom. He said that when his wife asks him to clean the bathroom, instead of saying to himself “I have to clean the bathroom” –ugh, he reframes it and says “I get to clean the bathroom.”  He explained that he consciously considers all the people who don’t have their physical health and can’t clean, who have lost their homes and don’t have a bathroom to clean or (my addition) have lost their spouse who might have asked them to clean.  Suddenly, it becomes a chore of appreciation rather than an irritating request by a spouse. 

I wonder how you can reframe things in your life and relationships; it can reduce external and internal conflict and may bring you some surprising peacefulness.  I reframe my teenager’s messy rooms all the time. I think:  it’s not that they’re showing disrespect to me, it’s that they’re not insecure and anxious to please others and they’re relaxed enough with me to let me see their “real” selves. See how this works ;-).

Mind-Body Connection

The mind-body connection is when the body reacts to something the mind is thinking. An example is, if you think about a very stressful situation in your life, you can raise your heart rate. Conversely, if you think about a stress free, calm and pleasant time you can lower your heart rate; all without moving from your chair!  You can also experience this connection through sounds, smells and pictures that remind you of things that are happy/good or challenging/bad.