How To Effectively Overcome Trauma - You Need To Deal With Repressed Emotions
MENTAL HEALTH
Trauma is a sensitive topic to approach. For some, the approach generates deep pain, for others anger, and for some amused denial of even having one (trauma), but hopefully sticking up until the end of this message will be productive for you, even if you have another kind of attitude: indifference to your own traumas.
2 Points To Understand Repressed Emotions and Overcome Trauma
Trauma is a sensitive topic to approach. For some, the approach generates deep pain, for others anger, and for some amused denial of even having one (trauma), but hopefully sticking up until the end of this message will be productive for you, even if you have another kind of attitude: indifference to your own traumas.
Before getting specifically into the trauma issue, it's essential to clear out two points necessary in order to understand how trauma can affect us on a daily basis.
Point 1: Suppose you're a person that suffers from low blood pressure. During the hot season you experience issues because of it, but even though during the cold season those issues (symptoms) are gone or reduced, it doesn't mean you\'re cured from low blood pressure, it just means that the circumstances of the environment can favour or disfavour you expressing such condition. Meanwhile, you always carry this condition in you as long as you don't work to cure yourself from it.
Point 2: Imagine a bottle constantly being filled with water. It only allows a certain volume of water in it, afterwards it expels water to it's surrounding as a mechanism to keep itself from exploding, if the exit for water would be sealed, sooner or later, the bottle would self-destruct because of too much pressure.
Keeping these two points in mind, now replace the low blood pressure by the latest negative emotion that has overcome you. In point 2, replace the bottle by yourself and the water by that latest negative emotion. Now see how the story goes...
Emotions are not erased during the time period they're not expressed, they\'re just repressed and stay dormant to our perception but fully functionally active.
Did you ever notice in yourself an emotional repetitive behaviour (explicit or not) while facing certain events (alike or not)? Think about that for a moment! Or if you ever have moments in which you experience an overwhelming sadness/anxiety/impatience/nervousness/anger that you cannot explain where they come from and what causes them...
If you have experienced this, do you see any relation to the two points cleared out above?
The first time a negative emotion got imprinted in you, let's say "anxiety", it (anxiety) attached to you and you attached to it. Later on, all kinds of different situation will cause you to feel this same emotion, this way it keeps growing in you, and at the same time it weakens the other response you could have while facing situations, in this case "patience" and "serenity". However, when situations are pleasant for you, you even forget what anxiety feels like (which resembles point 1).
Now point 2 comes along: We are not capable of carrying excessive damaging emotions for too long without breaking down and developing all kinds of serious health problems, like cancer... So wouldn\'t it be helpful to release off some excessive negative emotion some way? It's what we do without even noticing, it's a survival mechanism, not just regarding our mental and emotional health but our physical health as well.
This mechanism could involve addictions or even benevolent things such as joy. No, of course to be joyful is not a bad thing, but it could be used to hide deep sadness and depression. It's not rare that comedians or common folks that always appear to be joyful and happy are depressed, and some even commit suicide. After getting the news about the suicide or about the depression, some people would say: "But the person was always smiling, always happy, liked to party, had many friends..." Well, for some people it's easier to release off excessive sadness by searching for joyful experiences and portraying themselves as happy. On the other hand, for some crying seems more effective...
However, the point here is not what we use to release excessive negative emotion, but the point is are we aware of it at all?
It's likely that you have never thought about it before, perhaps it would do you good to start...
No matter what action is involved in the mechanism, it always makes us forget about that emotional/mental negative state which erodes us within, while at the same time allows us to unconsciously release the excess of those negative emotions in order to carry on, good would you say?
If your answer is yes, then you should consider this: The more you feel one emotion like anxiety or sadness, the more you're prone to feel them during uncomfortable and unpleasant situations. So, the mechanism used to release the excess does not eradicate the emotion within you, just the excess, and there'll always be situations likely to invoke those emotions. So what's the conclusion?
We might find ourselves entrapped in a loop of continuous repetition, for example: There's a situation and we feel anxious, then we do something to release the excess of anxiety, just in order to feel anxious again during another situation and so we release off some more excess and on and on and on and on...
Does it all make sense to you? Do you find yourself in such a loop or know someone who might be? Then please continue to part II of this message in order to walk the road to liberation.