Signs Of Trauma In Our Lives | Pure Desire Ministries

Yeah, so I think that's a good question for us to get into because maybe for some who are listening, this is a newer concept, or maybe it's something they've heard about, but kind of thought, well, Christians don't struggle with that, or that's, you know, we come to Jesus, he heals that. Right. It's like, oh, maybe there's more. I need to unpack. So if someone was trying to recognize, you know, Trevor, I think gave a great idea there of we can remember an incredible level of detail about something from decades ago. But, Heather, what are other ways we might recognize signs of trauma in our life? And why does it always seem to revolve around younger years, childhood kind of experiences?

Yeah, so these, in my mind, are kind of two a little bit separate questions, I think. Trevor, your example was really good. Being able to remember specific details about a situation, even though the situation itself felt maybe trivial in the big scheme of things, but the way that it impacted you and what it left you would is huge. Another one would be recognizing when somebody's response to a situation doesn't match the situation. So we've talked about that. Either it's way extreme or it's even below what would be considered a normal disproportionate response. For sure. Yeah. Okay. That, to me, is always a big thing. Also, when you notice that somebody's core characteristics, like things that you've known about this person that have always been very steady are changing, and even if it's a change that isn't a rapid thing, it definitely is something to pay attention to. And this. I even noticed this this morning with a co worker in the office, that this person is usually very energetic, has a lot to say, very optimistic. And so when I walked by and said, you know, how are you doing? The response was, I'm hanging in there. Now, I don't think I've ever heard that response from this person in the amount of years that I've known this person. But for me, that's an indication that, okay, something is going on with this person for sure. But if that became a pervasive pattern of behavior, then it needs to be looked at because the core characteristics of this individual were not evident in that moment. And it could be even that this afternoon we have a conversation and everything is back to normal. Okay, good. No red flag anymore. But when you start to notice somebody that you have a relationship with, that their behaviors are extremely different than what you've observed before, then that's a huge red flag. And a lot of Times we'll see that even in extremes. So somebody who used to be super social, really outgoing, loved going to do things with their friends, is now saying no to everything and isolating. And we can even notice this in our children. You know, as parents, we want to know our kids really well. And if we pay attention, we'll know when something happened at school, or we'll know when there's something that's ongoing that they're reluctant to tell us about. But the. Their behaviors are changing in a significant way. So I think that that is an important piece to all of this. And the other part of this is the impact that it has on our brain, for sure. And Nick, you kind of touched on this earlier about how when it has to do with our younger years, that there are parts of our brains that are fully developed that are capturing that information so that we can survive. Cause a lot of times when we experience trauma, there's a fear element to it which then stays part of our limbic response to it. But I think even recognizing that for an adult who has had some of these experiences, or even experiences trauma as an adult, there are literally parts of their brain that shut down, you know, that they're not even functioning because of this trauma response. And so there is a lot that goes into being able to recognize the behaviors, but also understanding that it's not just in what we can see, but it's understanding what's happening in their brain that's going to contribute to future behaviors.

Yeah, I think that it's easy to look at it and see the like, over response. Like, okay, it's easy to identify that. But I think we have to be just as aware of an under response where something that's really difficult or scary or traumatic in and of itself, there's this response that almost seems to not even acknowledge what happened that is also a trauma response. And so I feel like that's something that I've had to learn a little bit too, that if something's difficult and I end up being like hyper dismissive of it, then there's something else going on in me that I gotta, I gotta unpack and we'll get into how we do that. But I. I just feel like that's something that can be missed. It's like, oh, they're fine. It didn't actually hurt that much. It's like, well, that's not necessarily what's happening. Maybe that is a trauma response, that there isn't this big reaction.

What we're talking about here has a lot to do with the limbic response of the brain. It's the fight, flight, or freeze response. And that is such a huge indicator of when I find that, as we might call it, I'm going limbic. I'm going into fight mode. I'm getting angry. There's aggression, there's kind of amped up. I'm really defensive. I'm going into flight mode. I just want to run away, disappear, hide, leave the room, drive away. Or that freeze mode of feeling paralyzed, can't think, can't function. That's an indicator. There's a pattern here or a pathway that leads back to a wound and a trauma. And I think that we miss it because sometimes people might feel like, well, that's just the way I am. I just get angry. Or I just worry a lot. I just, you know, I just avoid conflict. It's like, well, there is a reason why for you, that particular area creates that response. Because you've probably noticed not everyone responds to that topic the same way you do. So there's something in your life that made that topic. And there are certainly consistencies of things like conflict, money problems, painful situations, people yelling. Like, there may be commonalities that a lot of people will have a similar response, but that's because we've seen that that can be traumatic. And I think what we want to help people do is if you see the present reaction is just start tracing it back and asking the question of where might this have developed in my life? When do I recall first feeling this way? And what we'll probably get back to is some memories where we are tempted to dismiss them is like, well, that was just kid stuff. Or that was just childhood. That was just my family. That was just the way my mom was. It's like, well, yeah, exactly. When you were six years old and your brain didn't understand all that, that's what your brain began to latch onto and learn. And so when we see the patterns, I. That becomes really instrumental. And the other thing I would just say is, like, what wakes you up at night? Or what keeps you up at night when everything starts to quiet down? And you used kind of the phrase earlier, Heather, like, what starts to bubble to the surface? And now your brain's going, oh, no. And what about that is probably a current concern that you could link back to past trauma if you spent some time thinking, why is it always this topic? Why is it this fear about my children making bad decisions or about going bankrupt or about, you know, getting exposed as a failure at work, or what is it for you that's creating that unresolved fear. And you could probably find that at the root of it is trauma, and likely from early years or from childhood.