Signs Of Trauma You May Not Notice

Trauma can be defined as a high-impact stressor that overwhelms the individual’s ability to cope and disrupts their relationship with self and others (Boyer, 2022). It affects various aspects of how a person perceives and interacts with their surroundings. It is often accompanied by psychological and physical symptoms that may not be immediately visible. 

In this blog article, we will discuss several signs of trauma that you may not recognise, such as dissociation, feelings of guilt and shame, overcompensation and emotional dysregulation. 

Dissociation

There is a notable correlation between dissociative symptoms and trauma.

Dissociation happens when thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and sensations become disconnected. It’s often linked to feeling out of control or unable to stop something traumatic. For example, a trauma survivor might describe it as watching themselves from above during a distressing moment, feeling disconnected from their own body.

What Research Conducted Over The Years

Research shows that dissociation can serve as a form of emotional regulation to cope with high levels of arousal, offering a psychological escape from traumatic experiences or memories. Dissociation can become an automatic response to any stressful situation or involve a stimulus associated with the memory of the trauma. This response creates an automatic disconnection between consciousness and other mental processes such as memory, behaviour and personal identity. 

Guilt and Shame

Guilt and shame are two different emotions related to trauma that have an impact on self-perception and identity.

A person who feels trauma-related guilt might think, ‘I shouldn’t have frozen during the accident; I could have done more,’ while still seeing themselves as a generally good person.

What Is Guilt?

People with a guilt-driven response to trauma often focus on self-blame and control. This can lead to constant overthinking, feeling tense, and experiencing unwanted memories or flashbacks (Fine et al., 2023).

What Is Shame?

Shame creates a deep sense of self-worthlessness (‘I am bad’), making individuals feel flawed and want to hide from others. For example, someone might think, “I always ruin things; I am fundamentally broken,” showing how trauma can damage their self-image.

Shame vs Guilt – What’s The Difference

While guilt is action-based and motivates reparative behaviour, shame reflects a more pervasive sense of self-worthlessness. Both can manifest physically (slouched posture, avoiding eye contact) or through behavioural patterns like withdrawal or over-apologising.

Overcompensation

Overcompensation is a defence mechanism in which individuals overachieve in one area of life to compensate for perceived failures in another. This defence mechanism stems from a need to feel adequate or successful to offset feelings of deficiency. It is a psychological strategy for managing stress, frustration, and inadequacy.

Neglectful Household Situation Example

A neglected person may seek validation through career success, while another may focus on fitness to regain control.

Overcompensation often masks deep-seated insecurities and can lead to burnout or further emotional exhaustion. It may be excessive people-pleasing, hyper-independence, or constantly needing external validation.n

Emotional Dysregulation

Emotional dysregulation is the impaired ability to regulate and/or tolerate negative emotional states. (Dvir Y et al.,2014)

Experiencing trauma can make it harder to manage strong emotions, sometimes leading to overwhelming feelings or difficulty expressing what is inside.

How Trauma Affects A Person’s Quality Of Life

Trauma can impair understanding, regulating, and expressing emotions, often leading to relational attachment difficulties. Adults who experienced childhood trauma are more vulnerable to emotional dysregulation. This type of trauma has an impact on their ability to recognise, identify, and express their own emotions. After experiencing situations beyond their control, individuals may need to relearn how to manage and express emotions effectively.

Hints Associated With Emotional Dysregulation

Signs of emotional dysregulation from trauma may include suppressing emotions, avoiding crying, or hiding frustration.

Childhood Abuse Situations Are Similar

Similarly, someone who experienced childhood abuse might react with intense anger to minor criticism, perceiving it as a threat similar to past experiences.

Building awareness and social cognition is essential for developing the ability to regulate emotions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, various signs of trauma and it is essential to be aware of how trauma can affect an individual to understand and support trauma victims properly. This trauma-supporting process should be done without judgment, but rather with awareness of how trauma can manifest in their daily lives.

References 

• Asgari Ghalebin, S. S., Bashrpour , S., & Mousavi , S. M. (2023). The effectiveness of combined therapy in coping strategies of overcompensation in patients with histrionic personality disorder. Portuguese Journal of Behavioural and Social Research. https://doi.org/10.31211/rpics.2023.9.1.287

• Beth S Gershuny, Julian F Thayer, Relations among psychological trauma, dissociative phenomena, and trauma-related distress: A review and integration, Clinical Psychology Review, Volume 19, Issue 5,1999,

• Boyer, S. M., Caplan, J. E., & Edwards, L. K. (2022). Trauma-Related Dissociation and the dissociative disorders: Delaware Journal of Public Health, 8(2), 78–84. https://doi.org/10.32481/djph.2022.05.010
• Dvir Y, Ford JD, Hill M, Frazier JA. Childhood maltreatment, emotional dysregulation, and psychiatric comorbidities. Harv Rev Psychiatry. 2014 May-Jun;22(3):149-61. Doi: 10.1097/HRP.0000000000000014. PMID: 24704784; PMCID: PMC4091823.

• Fine, N. B., Ben-Zion, Z., Biran, I., & Hendler, T. (2023). Neuroscientific account of Guilt- and Shame-Driven PTSD phenotypes. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 14(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/20008066.2023.2202060