Congratulations on completing this first chapter. You are off to a great start. You now have a list of people and tools you can turn to when you need them. During those times when you need emotional support, guidance support, distraction support, or meeting support, you now know exactly whom to call. You have also identified some of your initial feelings and needs. You have realized once again in your life that you are not in control and could be way out of balance. Let’s end this chapter with the axis of recovery, the Serenity Prayer.
God, grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.
CHAPTER TWO Reactions to Crisis and Trauma
“I didn’t respond the way I thought I would. What is wrong with me?”
“How could I have just stood there and let this happen?”
Whether you screamed, fought back, froze in your tracks, or figured out a way to adapt to what was happening to you, your reaction was the right reaction for you given the extreme circumstances. How you thought you would respond to a traumatic event isn’t always the way your body and mind choose to cope. We are all prewired to respond a certain way to a crisis situation, and it isn’t always the way we think we would respond. There are chemical and medical explanations for what your mind, body, and spirit went through. This chapter will help you to understand the effects a crisis and trauma have on your brain and emotional well-being. Understanding why you are feeling the way you are and that there are chemical and medical reasons for your reaction to this crisis will help in your recovery.
Just as we are powerless in our
addiction over our chemical, physical,
and psychological response to a
drug once it hits our system, we are
sometimes powerless over our responses
to extreme stress and trauma.
“I didn’t understand my reaction to the rape. I felt like I should have responded differently; I should have screamed or fought—but I didn’t. I beat myself up over this for years until I learned about crisis response and realized my reaction was quite normal and out of my control.”
First and foremost, if you are beating yourself up for responding the way you did, stop. Your response was just as much out of your control as the crime itself. You could never have predicted exactly how you would respond, so please do not waste any of your energy or time beating yourself up for not responding the way you thought you would have or should have. Playing the “would’ve” and “should’ve” game will only serve to make you crazy.
AFFIRMATION Today I will stop beating myself up for the way I responded to the crime. My response during this crime was not right or wrong; it was simply beyond my control. However, today I have control over how I will respond to my feelings about this event.
How trauma throws off physical and emotional balance Most people go through each day in a normal state of equilibrium or balance. Various stressors throughout your day can throw your equilibrium off a bit, such as a traffic jam when you’re late for work, getting pulled over for a traffic violation, or realizing that you have a big project that needs to be done. These are small stressors that can create a stress response in our body; however, we have a pretty good understanding of how we will respond to these daily stressors, so we aren’t totally thrown off balance when they occur. We are prepared for these types of stressors and, in many cases, we expect them. But when a significant crisis or trauma enters our world, it throws our equilibrium completely off its axis. We get so out of balance and off course that often we can’t get back to our original state of being. Our lives have been altered and shifted in such a drastic way that we must understand our responses in order to understand how we will respond to additional stressors throughout our lives after the crime. Today everything has changed. In order to adapt to these changes, we must understand what has happened and why.
The following is drawn from Chapter One of Marlene A. Young’s Victim Assistance: Frontiers and Fundamentals, a publication of the National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA).*
Trauma may be brought on by either an “acute” stressor or many “chronic” stressors. In order to understand which stressor you are responding to, we must define these terms. An acute stressor is usually a sudden, arbitrary, often random event. Crimes committed by strangers are key examples of such stressors. A chronic stressor is one that occurs over and over again, each time pushing its victims toward the edge of their state of equilibrium, or beyond. Chronic child, spousal, partner, dating, or elder abuse are examples of such chronic stressors.
The crisis reaction: the physical response
Physical shock, disorientation, and numbness
Initially people often experience a state of “frozen fright” in response to a dangerous threat. They may realize that something is terribly wrong or that something bad has happened, but they cannot comprehend the event or its impact. They may be unable to move or react. They may become disoriented because seconds ago everything in their life was “normal,” and now the world seems to be radically different and chaotic.
When trauma occurs, your body goes through a dramatic response physically and biologically, causing all types of responses. Adrenaline rushes through your body at lightning speed and immediately affects the body’s response to the event. Once the senses detect a threat, the body generates the power to fight or flee from the situation.
“I have always thought that if someone attacked me, I would run like crazy in the other direction. But when I felt the gun pressed into my back I just froze, time stood still, and it felt like my feet were bolted to the floor beneath me. I could not move, and it really upset me. Why didn’t I run?”
The reaction to fight or flee is generated by instinct and emotion. Thoughtful decision-making is rarely involved. It is impossible to predict what that first response will be. So if you have experienced a response that is counterintuitive to what you thought it would be, please be gentle with yourself. You couldn’t have controlled your response if you wanted to.
“After coming home to find my home was burglarized, I began to throw up. My stomach was wretched and I couldn’t breathe. I just kept thinking about what could have happened had my baby and I been in the house at the time. It made me so sick and I threw up all night long.”
“I was held at gunpoint for over thirty minutes during the robbery, but it wasn’t until I was giving my statement to the police that I realized my pants were soaked. I had urinated and didn’t even realize it. I was so embarrassed.”
Just like our emotional reaction isn’t always as we would think, neither is our physical reaction. Sometimes our bodies react physically in ways we do not understand, and we may vomit, defecate, or urinate. This can be very upsetting, as it adds an additional layer of confusion and sometimes shame to the crime itself. Again, please be mindful that you cannot always control what your body will do; you were powerless over your reaction to this event. Be gentle with yourself; you are only human.
The following charts are provided by the National Organization for Victim Assistance, and help