Understanding Trauma and Physical Symptoms After Betrayal or Infidelity in a Relationship

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this presentation on the Betrayed Spouse. I am your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Now, this is the first in a series of presentations on the Betrayed Spouse. We're going to make these the little short videos that we have just recently started doing, but I will combine the entire series to make a CEU course. If you are a counselor and you are wanting CEUs for this, but let's go ahead and get started. Betrayal is an emotional assault that causes the loss of trust, the loss of the relationship you thought you had, and a need to reconsider your assumptions about your emotional and physical safety, people and the world. When I say betrayal is an emotional assault, a lot of people who've experienced betrayal will describe it as feeling like they got punched in the gut for a second. It feels like a physical assault. It is an occurrence that activates our threat response system. We do need to recognize that it is a. It does cause injury. Mental, psychological, health, injury. The losses people experience as a result of betrayal need to be grieved. We need to work through the process of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance to move through this process, not only grieving the loss of that relationship as you knew it, but also grieving your loss of trust, maybe in other people for a little while, or your alteration of your view of the world. Betrayal affects people physically, affectively, which means emotionally, cognitively, environmentally, and relationally. When we experience betrayal, it cuts to our very core. As humans, we are social creatures, some more social than others, but we do, as humans, tend to want connection, which is why we have an entire hormone dedicated toward connection, and that's our oxytocin. So when we experience a betrayal or a hurt that comes from one of the people that we think of as a social support, one of those people that we trusted, it cuts to the very core of our being. Now, I said betrayal affects us every single possible way that anything could affect us. And in this video, we're really going to talk about the physical effects of betrayal right after somebody finds out that they've been betrayed. As I said, a lot of times they talk like they feel like they got kicked in the gut or, you know, they may have other metaphors for what is going on, but that is an expression of their threat response system or their HPA axis being activated. Their body has dumped a ton of cortisol. It's dumped norepinephrine and glutamate, which are fight or flee neurochemicals. It's also caused alterations in our sex hormones and our thyroid hormones. As a result of the perception of a threat, your body is preparing to fight or flee because it wants to survive. People may experience appetite changes. When our HPA axis is activated, our threat response system is activated. It tells our body, now's not the time to rest and digest. Now is the time to fight or flee. So your GI system tends to be on, you know, sped up. So you may experience cramping or diarrhea. You may have a loss of appetite. The other end of the spectrum, you may gravitate toward foods that are known to cause the release of dopamine and serotonin, like your high fat, high sugar foods. Being aware of what you're craving, why you're craving it and what you're eating is really important for you to feel happy and healthy. Your body needs proper nutrition. Your body needs the building blocks it gets from the food that you eat to make serotonin and dopamine and all those chemicals that we want for flowing through our body. You may not have a big appetite right now. It's important to work with your healthcare provider or be cognizant and work with yourself to make sure that you are trying to get at least reasonable nutrition. Sleep changes are also very common during this period because when our threat response system is activated, our body is saying, it is not safe to go into that deep restorative sleep. We need to be ready to go, we need to be ready to fight or flee at a moment's notice. So you're probably staying more ramped up, which means you're maybe sleeping more, but getting worse quality sleep. So you may be fatigued all the time. Those are expected reactions when your HPA axis is activated. It will be important during this time to make sure that you are trying to maintain the same sleep schedule schedule. You're going to sleep about the same time that you used to each night, getting up about the same time and minimizing your use of stimulants. Stimulants, especially caffeine, can stay in your system for up to 12 hours. So the caffeine that you drink at noon can still be keeping you awake or impairing your sleep at 10 or 11 o' clock at night. It is really important to be aware of the things that you're doing that may impair your sleep. You also want to stay hydrated, kind of going back to appetite for a second. When we are dehydrated, we will feel increased fatigue and have more difficulty concentrating, which will contribute to feelings of depression and feeling overwhelmed and like you don't know which way to turn, which is those are all very common feelings after a betrayal. We don't want to exacerbate those by having low blood sugar, dehydration or being sleep deprived. So those are some practical things that you can do to help your body regain control over that HPA axis. Migraines and GI disturbances are common side effects of stress, and a lot of different things may cause them. Understanding that the hormone and chemical changes that take place in your body when you're under stress may trigger these things. And when your threat response system, when that HPA axis calms down, a lot of those symptoms will be reduced significantly. Those alterations in thyroid and sex hormones can happen as a result of extended stress. And we want to recognize that when that happens, we're probably going to have reduced energy and reduced libido again with that threat response system, the primitive part of our brain says now is not the time to procreate, so we're not going to worry about libido right now. Which means that some of those sex hormones are going to go down. Unfortunately, there's a correlation between those sex hormones and some of our mood hormones like serotonin. When estrogen goes down, serotonin availability goes down, which means our mood may go down as well as our pain tolerance may also go down. So there's estrogen and testosterone are not just sex hormones. They're involved in our mood, in our energy levels, in our sleep, and our general feelings of well being. Another reason it's important to take steps to minimize as much ongoing stress as possible so that HPA axis can be turned down, so our body can get out of that fight or flee state. We can start to re regulate and then feel like we can think clearly in order to make the next best decision for us. Other effects of the HPA axis can be fatigue and exhaustion, not only from not sleeping well, but also from those altered thyroid and sex hormones. When testosterone is low, for example, people often have very little energy. But fatigue and exhaustion can also happen just from having those thoughts constantly and having that brain going. When that HPA axis is activated, it's also causing your body to dump a bunch of blood glucose or blood sugar, so you have the energy to fight or flee. Even though you may not be moving a lot, you are actually burning a lot of blood sugar, which can lead you to feel hypoglycemic and exhausted. Going back to those appetite sleep changes, make sure you take care of your physical health. In order to mitigate some of the effects of betrayal, you're not going to be able to prevent them completely, unfortunately, because your reaction is to that assault. Your reaction is a very normal reaction. The key is saying, okay, it is what it is. I've been betrayed. What is the next best thing I can do to have for me what is important to me in my life to have a rich and meaningful and happy life? What is an important thing that I need to do to maintain or to work toward getting back to being healthy and happy? Thank you for watching and I will see you on the next episode.