sadTraumatizing events can take a serious emotional toll on those involved, even if the event did not cause physical damage.
Regardless of its source, an emotional trauma contains three common elements:
• it was unexpected;
• the person was unprepared; and
• there was nothing the person could do to prevent it from happening.
Symptoms of emotional trauma:
• Eating disturbances (more or less than usual)
• Sleep disturbances (more or less than usual)
• Sexual dysfunction
• Low energy
• Chronic, unexplained pain
• Depression, spontaneous crying, despair and hopelessness
• Anxiety
• Panic attacks
• Fearfulness
• Compulsive and obsessive behaviors
• Feeling out of control
• Irritability, angry and resentment
• Emotional numbness
• Withdrawal from normal routine and relationships
• obsessions with death
It is not the event that determines whether something is traumatic to someone, but the individual's experience of the event.
