As a licensed professional therapist who specializes in trauma, I have had several people question what constitutes this pandemic as a trauma. This is understandable as we are being asked to stay home, which for so many people is a safe place. A trauma is defined by our response to an event. The way we process events is determined by: our past experiences, variables that happen alongside these events, and our personal narrative, which is the story that we tell ourselves about our lives.
While we have no real frame of reference for a pandemic, as none of us have lived through one before, many people do have past experiences of trauma that are being triggered by our current circumstances. People who have felt trapped, isolated, or helpless, for example, may be experiencing the emotions they felt during that previous trauma.
While some people are fortunate enough to keep their jobs and work from home, we also know that there is a widespread financial instability that will affect our communities, presenting a compounding variable of fear. Our personal experiences of what is happening now consists of changing events every day, which is confusing and unsettling, as it is almost impossible to plan for the immediate future.
Jennifer Yaeger.Courtesy of Jennifer YaegerA trauma is a physical, mental, and emotional response that happens when an event triggers a hormonal response that our brain interprets to mean that we are in danger. Our senses take in data from the occurrence, and we interpret these as either a reminder of a previous experience in which we had a trauma response or a new experience that appears threatening.
We then feel a variation of fear on an emotional level. Our brain releases hormones that mobilize our physical systems to alert us to the danger we are in and create a fight, flight, or freeze response. Once this happens, we are no longer operating in our optimal range of responding to everyday situations.
The responses that I am seeing from the majority of people during the pandemic have been an oscillation from high anxiety to a somewhat depressed affect (fight or flight), and then periods of numbness (freeze) — all of which are typical when experiencing ongoing trauma. A lot of people are having days when they feel okay and even enjoy being at home and this new, slower pace of life, but they will then have moments or days when they experience sadness followed by anxiety, or vice versa. Some people also experience periods of apathy or numbness.
It can be a confusing reality to navigate, as we have not all experienced some of the more intense consequences of the pandemic yet.
What can we do to navigate this trauma that we are currently living through?When experiencing trauma, we are limited in our ability to process many other experiences at the same time, as so much of our energy is going toward surviving our current situation.
For example: In order to go to the grocery store today, I have to plan for using a mask, gloves, not touching my face, staying farther away from other people, touching as few things as possible, and then disinfecting my groceries, my clothes, and my body upon returning home. While I am in the grocery store, my mind is occupied by thoughts and feelings about wondering if anyone in this store is carrying the coronavirus. Previously, I went to the grocery store, bought what I wanted, and came home. Today, it is a nerve-wracking experience requiring much more physical, mental, and emotional energy than the grocery shopping trip than I am used to.
Here's what we can do about it.
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