Dr. Carol Darza (trauma psychologist and founder of Reconnect Integrative Trauma Treatment) explains how the COVID-19 pandemic can reactivate past traumas. She links pandemic features—confinement, increased domestic violence, medical fears, unpredictability, loss of control, prolonged uncertainty, grief, social isolation, and rising addiction—to retraumatization, especially for people with childhood abuse or medical trauma. Darza emphasizes nonjudgment, acceptance, forgiveness, and maintaining social connection as key responses, and highlights the idea of collective trauma affecting caregivers and community supports.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Dr. Carol Darza, author, trauma psychologist and founder of Reconnect Integrative Trauma Treatment center in Los Angeles. I'm going to be talking today about COVID and the pandemic and the trauma. It's been already over six months. We're in this pandemic, unfortunately, and I haven't addressed it yet because I'm kind of watching what's really happening, which I find very interesting. So in March 2020, when the pandemic first hit and we got the restrictions orders, I observed a lot of different reactions from people. Some people were almost saying, like, this is a blessing. I get to stay home and be with my kids. And then there was a lot of panic about what am I going to do? Right. Financial panic. And then, of course, the part that's not very much talked about is the trauma. And if you have past trauma, how Covid impacts you or how really the home restrictions impact you. So being at home, what does it mean for someone who has PTSD or for someone who has had trauma, even if it doesn't turn into ptsd? Well, there are a lot of things. So let's assume as a child, you were physically abused and. And you were confined into a specific space. So the moment you cannot leave your home, whether you want it or not, whether you as an adult, know that it is not the same topic, your system, your childhood memories, will show up in your consciousness and can create a lot of reaction in you. So this is something that people sometimes do not pay attention to. This is the reason why I wanted to talk about this. There could be a lot of things. So violence in general, some. Unfortunately, a lot of domestic violence increased during this pandemic period. So if you've already grown up in a childhood home where your parents were violent with each other or you were abused by your parents, now having a partner who's becoming more angry or verbally even violent towards you can trigger the past memories a lot. You might have had childhood illness growing up, and maybe you had to be in the hospital for a long time, or you were bedridden growing up. These are all medical traumas. And so now having a fear of being sick again or even going to the hospital or constantly talking about illnesses can be quite a lot of trigger for childhood trauma. This is very important for those of you who do not have maybe trauma to understand and not be so judgmental towards other people who do not think being at home is such an amazing thing or sometimes a blessing in disguise. I have noticed a lot of judgments going around and I wanted to address that. There are a lot of other items that it's important to mention here about why Covid and pandemic is so triggering for a lot of people. First of all, this is a crisis, right? This is a not nationwide crisis, but it's actually worldwide crisis. And it's very unpredictable. It's very sudden. So this unpredictability can mimic again, your background, your history when things were unpredictable and so suddenly hurtful for you. Let's talk about confusion. There's a lot of lack of information that happened and our information that's changing constantly. When we are growing up, we have a need for stability. We have a need for predictability. In fact, if you're a parent, you will know you create sort of a bedtime routine for your children. Well, what's happening with COVID Nothing is predictable. Nothing is stable. One day we say, okay. In fact, in the beginning, you don't even need to wear masks. Okay, now we have to wear masks. Then we have a vaccine. No, we don't have a vaccine. Constantly giving and getting different kind of information is a very unpredictable, very triggering for the nervous system who's already unfortunately grown up in such a environment. So that could be another way a person could really feel triggered, feeling out of control. Trauma and control very much go hand in hand. Trauma, which means you've experienced a threatening, hurtful, scary event. And so now when things are out of your control, which means you can't decide when you go home, you can't decide when you go to your work, you can't decide whether to wear a mask, or you can't decide whether you can go to a restaurant or not, means a lot of the control has been taken out of your hand. It's not because of a mal intent. Yes, you may know that cognitively it is because there's a pandemic, but still a lot of things are out of your control. And that could create a reaction in you if you've never had a control. Growing up in your childhood. Another problem, feeling like it's never going to end. Oh, this is actually. This touches everyone. That includes me, of course. Don't think that just because I'm a than therapist that Covid doesn't impact me. So it's never gonna end. Meaning you just can't see the end of it. So it actually really impacts the hope of a person. So you're trying to see, okay, this is a stressful situation. I'm in it for two, three months. That can create a little bit of a Strength and a hope in person. But when you don't know when it's going to end, it can be quite triggering. Grief, talking about loss. So with the COVID a lot of people lost their jobs, they lost their connection to people, they lost their passion, they lost their joy in activities. So there's some grieving. And this is a normal feeling and this is actually a feeling that has to be really validated and accepted. So if you're feeling certain amount of grief during this pandemic, again, please just be very gentle with yourself and accepting of that isolation. As human beings, we are not meant to be alone. I really don't believe in that. Well, luckily we are in the high technology period and not like in the 1900s when there was a pandemic, which probably the isolation must have been even much worse. But here, not having a physical contact with the people that you love can be very triggering for someone. I have a client, for instance, that I'm treating. In fact, more than one client really struggling with the same thing during their childhood. In order to avoid the parents conflict, they isolated themselves in their room to find a sense of safety and refuge. So right now this isolation can create a remembrance of how they felt when they had to isolate in their rooms when they were kids. Addiction is unfortunately on the rise. I don't know if you know the statistics. Be very careful. If you find yourself wanting to use more drugs or wanting to drink more, or really maybe have a food addiction, don't be surprised if during pandemic this increases. But this is something that has to be very carefully watched. I often talk about acceptance and forgiveness as part of the healing in in trauma. And I can't emphasize this enough in terms of the pandemic triggers and how it's important to be not judgmental towards others, not not to be judgmental towards yourself. And knowing that everyone will react to this collective trauma in a very different way. Oh yeah, I just reminded myself I wanted to talk about collective trauma. What does that mean? Collective trauma means when the trauma is experienced not just by you or by your family, but most likely by a big community, sometimes a whole country, or in this situation, a whole world. And that might increase the level of stress that you feel. Because I'd like to actually give another example before I say the. Because in the beginning when Covid hit and we were at home, one of my clients said, well, I was coming to you for support and you were my refuge and you were my sense of hope. And now I'm wondering how you are and if you are stressed, I wonder how you're going to take care of me. And this is what happened during this collective trauma. People didn't know where to turn to. So you have to be very careful in terms of watching the news, finding people who can have a bit of a sense of hope so that the collective trauma doesn't get even worse than what it has been. So please be gentle with each other rather than judging each other. Really understand that this is a stress that we all experience, and we need support, not judgment. Please remember, trauma equals disconnect. Healing equals reconnect. Stay connected, Sa.
