Trauma is Wired In (and Out)

I was speaking with a physician last week, who shared that she is on leave indefinitely.

To be fair, she resigned, they told her to take it as “temporary leave;” and in exhaustion (and likely anxiety), she did.

But whenever her old work calls, she starts crying. Uncontrollably.

Can you relate?

She confirmed that she’s “ok,” that she doesn’t feel depressed, gets great joy out of being with her family and has their support. And she loved her work; at least the parts where she got to help people and feel connected as a physician. But when I asked about the crying uncontrollably, her only response was that she needed to “get over it,” because she wasn’t depressed.

And yet…every time they called….

Here’s the thing; many of us discount these experiences, where we have frequent crying, panic attacks, or outbursts. We imagine that we should rationally be able to stop.

But these intense bursts of (uncontrolled) emotion aren’t coming from the rational parts of our brain. They are (acquired) trauma responses, wired into our irrational/lizard/hindbrain that is trained to respond to threats.

They tell us that the signal coming in (a phone call from work, the pager going off) means that you are not safe.

In other words, your body interprets a trigger with the same threat-response as though you are in bodily danger.

It doesn’t make sense, right? Except it does.

Little “t” trauma, repetitive events where there was too much, too fast, and often with too little support or resources trains our bodies and brains to respond this way to the sound of the pager, or seeing the hospital come up on our phone. Or getting a patient complaint. Or having someone be disappointed with you.

It gets wired in.

It can be wired out, but it’s not something that we typically can talk our way through; it’s at a deeper level in our nervous system than can be simply overwritten. Healing is possible. Rewiring can be done. You can feel better.

But you have to get the support you need. Which means you have to acknowledge what’s happening, ask for help, and allow for it too.

Here’s a short list of therapies that can help with trauma responses:

• EMDR or brainspotting (eye movement-based treatments, usually done with a trained therapist)
• Memory Reconsolidation (usually done with a trained therapist)
• Internal Family Systems therapy or “parts” work (usually done with a trained therapist or coach)
• Mind-body tools like iRest and Yoga Nidra (an ancient sleep meditation)

I personally have experienced many of these modalities and found them incredibly healing for responses that I couldn’t fully understand; so I know they work.

And I hope that if you see yourself in this story, that you too will reach out for the healing that you NEED and DESERVE.

Your trauma responses come from a real place. And, you can heal.

Want to know more? Check out this week’s podcast (from 10/15/24), Episode 146 Trauma Responses are Not Your Fault, in your favorite podcast player.