Bert Russel once said, “fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.” When humans are afraid they can act in the most bizarre ways. Take Nazi Germany for example, many of the soldiers were too afraid to stand up to Hitler and an entire race of people were almost wiped out.

While Nazi Germany may be an extreme example, fear has the ability to cause us to act in baffling and unexplainable ways. Fear is a tricky emotion, it can be both harmful and helpful in relationships and in life. I like to use the analogy of a car accident to explain fear. Let’s say while driving a person gets into an accident, the next time they get in a car they feel a little nervous, but tell themselves that it’s normal after what happened.

Now, let’s say that they have had multiple accidents, have done some work to heal, but any time a situation happens that is similar to the accidents they experience fight, flight and freeze, also known as a PTSD response. After five accidents they probably would be very nervous when driving again and even hesitant to get in a car.

The same goes for relationships, if a person experiences a trauma in a relationship, be it domestic, friendship, romantic or any other type of relationship. Trauma being any type of physical or emotional pain, such as abuse, heartache, neglect, abandonment, cheating, or any other type of hurt, the person will most likely be nervous going into the next relationship. If multiple trauma’s occur and steps have not been taken to heal, the person would be incredibly cautious going into the next relationship, would most likely have trust issues, would probably doubt themselves and be wary of the other person’s intentions.

Trauma affects three areas of the brain — the amygdala the part of the brain that processes emotions, the hippocampus-the part of the brain that centers around memory, and the prefrontal cortex- the part that handles decision making and behavior.When we experience trauma, the amygdala reacts causing us to feel fear and go into fight, flight or freeze. The hippocampus holds on to that trauma, conceals it and stores it. If we don’t take steps to heal ourselves from the trauma, it can be reactivated later on causing our prefrontal cortex to respond with post traumatic stress responses. 

Post-traumatic stress response are similar to the body trying to heal an agonizing wound that hasn’t had a chance to heal. The more severe the trauma or having multiple occurrences the longer the healing process is. While the brain is a wonderful vessel for protecting us, when past wounds have not been healed they can be reopened by similar situations.

Often our initial trauma begins with painful situations that we experienced in childhood. These experiences cause us to have abnormal beliefs about ourselves and unrealistic ideals we feel we should live up to. When we are provoked, it is possible to feel that we are not good enough or worthy of love and acceptance. We may feel guilt, despair and shame.We may experience memory lapses or emotional numbness, doubt and distrust in ourselves as well as others.

These beliefs can make us vulnerable to criticism and judgement. When we’re criticized, whether or not it’s intentional, we can easily go into flight fright or freeze, we can act irrationally, forget our boundaries and even lose our self-esteem. Because our initial trauma begins in childhood we may even act in an immature or with a childish manner when we are triggered.

Healing from trauma can take time and is different for everybody, but it is a necessary process. The first step is figuring out how to stabilize and feel safe again. Second is defining or naming it and understanding what happened. The final step is not allowing the trauma to define you. After experiencing a trauma it is important to take back your power and move forward by making empowering decisions. By making empowering decisions you become stronger, braver and self assured again. When you take steps in order to heal, you realize you are not just a survivor, you have become a warrior. Fighting a battle to be free once more and that is definitely worth fighting for.