Did you experience or witness a highly disturbing experience, such as a natural disaster, physical injury or sexual assault?
Do intrusive memories or nightmares of a stressful life event frequently flood your mind?
Do certain situations bring you back to the same emotional state that you had when you were facing a traumatic event?
Do you avoid situations, thoughts and feelings because they remind you of a traumatic experience?
Do you feel hypervigilant, fearful, numb or disconnected?
These experiences are landmarks of traumatic stress reactions. They can be immediate psychological responses to a traumatic event, or they can appear months or even years after the trauma has occurred. Even though trauma may vary in frequency and intensity, any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed, isolated, fearful, distrustful or emotionally wounded can be described as traumatic. The distressing response to the event, rather than the event itself, is what makes a situation traumatic. Trauma assaults your sense of safety and trust, and professional assistance can help you.
So if you frequently struggle with…
- Overwhelming anxiety, depression and irritability
- Unwanted memories, vivid images or nightmares of a trauma
- Physical symptoms such as sweating, palpitations, or panic attacks
- Frequent feelings of imminent danger or constantly worry about safety
- Inability to experience joy, happiness, love, or other positive emotions
…Then trauma focused interventions may be able to help. Professional assistance can help you regain mastery over situations that were unmanageable or left you feeling victimized. Trauma-focused therapy combines compassion with evidence-based therapeutic methods to help clients to better manage traumatic stress.
At the Good Life Center for Mental Health, we provide a safe and supportive environment conducive to learning how to manage anxiety and decrease avoidance behaviors that keep traumatic events alive. If you would to take the next steps down the road of recovery, please contact us.