Common Reactions to Trauma - Nicole Holmes, PhD

There are as many responses to trauma as there are people who experience trauma! We are all different, have different histories, and experience events differently. Even whether an event is experienced as traumatic can vary from person to person or might impact the same individual differently at different times in their life. For example, a break-up might feel devastating at age 15 and only mildly upsetting at age 27.

Some common Reactions:

Physical Reactions	Mental Reactions	Emotional Reactions	Behavioral Reactions
Nervous energy, jitters, muscle tension	Changes in the way you think about yourself, the world, and other people	Fear, inability to feel safe	Becoming withdrawn or isolated from others
Upset stomach	Heightened awareness of your surroundings (hypervigilance)	Sadness, grief, depression, guilt, feeling chronically empty	Easily startled
Rapid heart rate	Lessened awareness, disconnection from yourself (dissociation)	Intense or extreme feelings or vacillating back and forth	Becoming confrontational and aggressive
Dizziness	Difficulty concentrating	Inability to enjoy anything	Avoiding places or situations
Lack of energy, fatigue	Poor attention or memory problems	Loss of trust, emotional distance from others	Increase or decrease in sexual activity
Teeth grinding	Difficulty making decisions	Loss of self-esteem	Change in eating habits
	Intrusive images	Feeling helpless	Loss or gain in weight
	Nightmares	Numbness, lack of feelings	Restlessness

Here is a list of reactions trauma survivors have shared:

devastation, feeling ripped apart, pain, terror, disgust, being on edge, helplessness, loss of control, feeling like i'm in a trance, wandering through a fog, overwhelmed, feel like garbage, guilt, rage, feel dirty, numbness, intimidation, suffering, fearful, wanting to die, feeling trapped, feeling like I'm gasping for air, loss of self-respect, shame, incompetence, confusion, determination, panic, disintegration, voicelessness, isolation...