Question About Trauma

[BlackbirdSinging]

I'd like to ask @anthony or anyone else who knows about the details of the criterion for trauma a question about experiencing more trauma. I'm not sure if this is the best place on the boards to ask but I'm trying here.

I've been raped and experienced different types of sexual assault and verbal and emotional abuse. Today I was told that someone very close to me in my family was date raped very recently. Something I too have experienced. To put it simply I'm reacting very badly to the news. I can be specific if need be.

I called my therapist left a message and never heard back from her. My question is can hearing of my family member's trauma traumatize me? Especially considering it's a trauma I once experienced too? I feel like this is kind of an odd question. But I'm struggling and I'm having a very hard time processing this.

 

[WillyKat]

Your therapist will give you a better answer. Someone posted a couple of weeks ago asking of as a 911 dispatcher, she could be traumatized. The official definition (DSM V) says that witnesses to traumatic events can be traumatized. So it sort of depends on what "witness" means. Does it mean you have to be there, or just hear about it?

What is clear is that hearing about a trauma to someone else can act as a trigger for you. So you're re-experiencing your own trauma when you hear about someone else, close to you, having the same experience.

Hope that helps.

 

[BlackbirdSinging]

Thank you WillyKat. It's definitely helpful to hear. I was aware of myself enough to know that I was badly triggered. I don't like to use the term dissociate too casually as I'm not a professional. But if my understanding of the term and my past experiences are right then I did a lot of dissociating.

I won't say that I had flashbacks. Or maybe I did have emotional flashbacks though. But I had many surges of being flooded with vivid memories of my own experience. I shook for a good 40 minutes and had that dissociated like feeling for at least an hour after being told of what happened.

After having overwhelming emotions is when I started to feel very dazed. Physically I calmed down some from there and I went numb. Tears rolled down my face but I didn't weep or sob per se.

I keep trying to process this and make sense of what happened so that I can deal with it and be there for the person. But I'm finding talking to them and thinking of them and their experience is actually just re triggering me all over again. I feel terrible because they need me to be there for them. And I want to be. But I'm triggered in different ways. This is very hard.

 

[franciemarnie]

I am so glad you shook and cried. You released some of the emotional energy. That's fantastic although I know this has been an awful experience.

It's not comfortable to shake and cry but I am so happy when I do. I'm coming out of the Freeze.

 

[BlackbirdSinging]

That's true franciemarie. I did release some of the energy. Although for me sometimes the shaking and crying is how I go into those moments instead of coming out of them that way.

I want to add too that I spoke to the person it happened to. They told me the step by step breakdown of what happened. I got a very clear image in my head.

So now I feel like I'm remembering their experience. And I feel like I'm remembering mine too when it comes flooding back. The details are very different. But still. I feel like I'm having a double memory if that makes sense. I can see what this person went through so clearly. And then bam there are my own memories.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I don't believe there is a criterion for trauma, but there is one for PTSD. It's important not to confuse the two.

 

[BlackbirdSinging]

That's true. My head is just not clear right now. I think my basic question was more about how hearing about her trauma could be effecting me since I'm struggling so much with it. Especially with my own trauma and history.

 

[franciemarnie]

I cannot bear to hear certain things spoken of this last year. I have literally walked out of the room when a family member began going over the details of a traumatic experience I was a part of as well as experiences I wasn't there for. Though I love my uncle, the one who was speaking of these things, it is too much for me to relive - whether that which I was there for and details of what I wasn't. He needs to compulsively talk about these things. I have compassion for him but compassion also for myself as well as the self awareness to know this is something I can't do right now. It could ultimately incapacitate me to ignore how it affects me. Then I can't be there for anyone. Plus there are other people he can talk about this with who would be unaffected or less so and therefore be more helpful.

It is beautiful that you are so compassionate for your friend and want to be there but you must have equal compassion for yourself. And it's good to be aware that this is triggering. Maybe you could be there in another way, encouraging your friend in getting professional help but being there in a capacity other than hearing the details.

 

[Lifeline]

From Criterion A of the DSM 5: "Indirectly, by learning that a close relative or close friend was exposed to trauma. If the event involved actual or threatened death, it must have been violent or accidental."

So it could be another PTSD-worthy trauma to you, a trigger, or both.

 

[arfie]

I find my own triggered states to feel like a new trauma, but I also feel like there are important distinctions I don't quite have the words to express. For now, I hold them separate while I await words to speak the diff.

Avoidance is a wonderful tool, but I solidly believe the places I am triggering are spots which need to be revisited. I shoot for a balance between respecting immediate needs -aka, calming the reaction - and keeping my healing on track. The lines between avoidance and denial are fuzzy, at best.

Clear as mud, I know. Just sorting?

 

[BlackbirdSinging]

that a close relative or close friend was exposed to trauma. If the event involved actual or threatened death, it must have been violent or accidental."

While it wasn't a threat of death it was rape. And it's someone very closely related to me. I'm not trying to be cryptic but respectful of her privacy since it's her experience and not mine. Although it's very triggering as I'm still working through my own history of being raped. Even in a similar situation.

 

[Lifeline]

While it wasn't a threat of death it was rape. And it's someone very closely related to me.

No. It's any actual or threatened death, serious physical injury, and/or sexual violation but the death component has to be violent or accidental (not a death that's a normal part of life... It's to delineate between someone suffering from a normal range of grief and potential PTSD). So hearing about someone who you are closely connected to getting raped can meet criteria A of PTSD.