How Trauma Responses Manifest in Our Lives

Each of us has unique experiences, and we all learn to cope with the events of our lives in varied environments. What may seem obvious to one person as a coping response can seem unrelated to someone else. 

Depending upon how we are raised, the influences of our culture, environment, social group, as well as our traits, can all affect how we respond to trauma, stress, or simply adapt to life. We might learn as we grow to repress emotions, detach from our body or feelings, or we might learn the opposite and lash out of have large displays of emotional release to express ourselves. 

There isn’t a right or wrong way to respond to life, trauma or stress. There isn’t a human blueprint or manual on how to cope with loss, grief, emotional experiences or even love and excitement. But we do absorb ideas of this from the people around us, and based on what our environment allows. 

Trauma responses begin in the body and are processed (subconsciously often) in our mind. We can’t always control our initial responses to trauma, and if our body learns a certain method of response that helped us to survive or manage stress, it can repeat and use this tactic often. 

If a response was unwelcome or wasn’t effective, the body and mind can seek to find alternative ways to cope, and we can end up with many coping responses that can arise at different times. 

Trauma is defined as “a deeply distressing or disturbing experience (a personal trauma like the death of a child), an emotional shock following a stressful event or a physical injury, (which may lead to long-term neurosis where the event is relived with all the accompanying trauma) or a physical injury.” 

We all experience trauma and shock at times in our lives. Trauma responses can take effect through persistent stress, emotional strain or when something shakes or radically alters our worldview, sense of safety or something that we find mentally difficult to understand (due to the difference the experience makes to our sense of morality, security or concept of justice). 

There are no particular types of experience that always lead to trauma, although there are many common ones. We can also go through stressful and challenging circumstances that don’t cause long-term conditions related to traumatic stress. 

This is often dependent upon our (physical, developmental, mental or emotional) maturity, skill level and exposure to circumstances. For example, a young adult who has never been alone or has had a particularly catered experience at home may find the stress of going away to university or their first job deeply stressful and traumatic, even. Someone might experience a terrible crime against them but have developed a strong sense of security wth a strong support system and find they don't have any long-term effects after the event. 

We all process and experience the events of our lives differently. We might even initially think we haven’t had a strong response, it hasn’t affected us, and then later symptoms arise or we find ourselves grappling with past events years later. 

This can happen as we grow and change or experience new perspectives that challenge our old ways. We might enter a new phase of life or have new experiences that remind us of the old events and challenge us to consider them from a new (deeper or higher, more evolved) perspective. 

Trauma wounds can often be unexplained by logic alone. Most of modern psychology and psychiatry try to medicalise these experiences. But they are often deeply spiritual, energetic wounds that we can not fully explain rationally. We might logically know the event has passed, we are safe now, but still exist in that energy experience, or a rite of passage may encourage us to deeply reflect on our past unexpectedly. 

In these cases, we are reminded that there is a wound that requires feeling, nurture, grounded awareness and spiritual attention to heal. 

We can also go through traumatic experiences as part of a group that can impact how we respond to individual trauma events. As a collective, we have gone through traumatic social events that also affect or have an impact on our personal lives. This is all part of our experience and may affect how we relate to personal trauma in our lives. For example, the COVID experience that affected us all may have awakened, activated or caused trauma symptoms to arise for many of us, and as a group, we are all individually and collectively learning how to adjust after such a significant period of our history. 

Social conditions can change, activate stress responses and make our old coping methods inaccessible or less impactful, causing us to have to address what was being hidden in new ways. If our financial situation changes, for example, and we can’t afford to cope with an addiction, or we become ill and can’t work, that used to help us distract from stress. We might get caught up in news stories or political changes that impact us all, affecting why we might suddenly find ourselves realising old trauma wounds or having to address how we once coped. 

Medially, despite many advancements, we are still grappling wth the energetic and spiritual impact of individual and collective traumas that can not be healed through medication or quick fixes. Instead, many more of us are realising we need to address deeper issues, and we are in the age of information, all learning and sharing ways that we can do this together and alone. 

In this post, I am going to explain some of the common ways trauma can manifest in our lives and how we might respond. But there could be many manifestations of these events in our lives. It is intended as an introduction and a short explanation to open your awareness and understanding of how trauma or stress responses might be affecting you in your life. 

Fight 

The fight response is often the most obvious or aggressive response. It is physical and includes an active display most of the time. But it can also be an internal response where we experience internal conflict of the mind or emotion. 

These responses might include:

• Lashing out or physical violence.

• Arguing.

• Overwork and being always busy.

• Fixing drives or perfectionism - this can be anxiety, a compulsive disorder or other forms of active, aggressive or passive aggressive control. 

Flight

The flight response can be physical or internal. It can be noticeable and obvious, but also manifests in ways that we might not always recognise. 

These responses can include:

• Leaving - physically moving away from a situation.

• Escapism and addiction, or hedonism.

• Avoidance - by passing people or conversations, for example, putting things off or procrastination.

Freeze or Flop

This response is often easy to observe but complex. We might want to act, but be unable to. It can be linked with executive dysfunction or perceived as laziness or stubbornness. 

This might manifest as:

• Paralysis - being unable to move physically, fatigue or deep sleep. 

• Detachment - from situations, emotions, people, places or circumstances. Seeming unbothered or unable to respond to events as they occur. 

• Chronic illness or pain.

• Depression.
  

Fawn

A fawn response is often unnoticed in many ways since the fawning is a form of diversion from the fear or distress that might be occurring internally. 

These responses might appear as:

• People-pleasing, enabling or codependency - doing for others and ignoring personal needs. 

• Over-giving, over-exertion and burnout. 

• Performing - putting on a show, making jokes, pretending or role playing.

• Empathic tuning or hypersensitivity - picking up on or responding to other people's needs or emotions (especially at the expense of or when it overrides your state).

Hide 

The hide response isn’t something I see referred to in usual trauma education or discussion, but one I have observed often. It can go unnoticed because, in its nature, it is a removal of self or a distraction away from the distress response. 

It might look like:

• Isolation - staying away from people or disengaging with others. 

• Masking - playing a role and pretending or presenting a distorted persona. 

These trauma responses might appear in different ways depending on the type of trauma we experience. For example, they may develop as an attachment style when we experience relational trauma. 

The way we choose to respond within each theme or group of responses might be slightly different. One person might escape through addiction to alcohol and partying a lot (which is a flight response), while another person might escape through social media addiction. The themes and responses are the same; they are forms of escape from the current or past reality to cope. 

There might be social influences that dictate how we respond. For example, it might be considered more socially acceptable for a man to lash out physically, even if not tolerated or preferred, we are more likely to see a man punching something than a woman. A woman may argue and shout, and both are fight responses. 

Some trauma responses can even be encouraged or socially acceptable. For example, masking and role playing often help in group settings; it can be useful to be a people-pleaser and overgive in a family. We often encourage overwork and celebrate it as productivity when the driving force can be stress that could lead to other issues in the person's life. 

Due to all these influences, we can even find ourselves caught between two or many responses and find ourselves ‘splitting’ due to our trauma response. This is when we dissociate or remove our emotional responses, presence and mind from situations. It is a form of escape and fawning. We are tapping out of our awareness and trying to please others by remaining calm or seeming unbothered. 

This can then manifest as having different personalities or not knowing how to respond in conflicting situations. We might have a very active, busy side in public and a very isolated, hidden side in private. Conflict can arise when we have situations that might require one or the other ‘response’ but feel uncertain (subconsciously) which to respond to. 

For example, I had a partner who said, “I don’t know how to be around you”, and when we explored their distress, it became clear they had a personality type they showed to their friends, a different one for family and another at work. When the bounds of those roles were erased around me, and we worked together, I met their family and friends, and they felt internal confusion and stress because I was seeing many sides of them, and they didn’t know which one was their “real” or authentic self. 

Our authentic self is the person beneath the responses, the coping mechanisms and the roles we play. Our hidden self can be vulnerable and afraid. This is why trauma recovery, especially from complex trauma experiences, can be complicated. As we realise we have learned to cope in many ways, learning to let go of the coping, nurturing the source of stress or trauma wounds, we may find a very different person beneath it all. 

It is also common that empathic people, those who feel highly attuned to others and take on a lot of energy from other people or their environment, can find themselves struggling not only to process their emotional responses but also what they are responding to from others. They might find themselves angry, upset or stressed “for no reason” when they are picking up on other people's dissociated or subtle emotions. 

This can confuse a lot of people and is due to a fawning trauma response that they have adopted. The empathic response is trying to mitigate any potentially risky situations from arising while the person is picking up on micro expressions or subtle changes in behaviour, language or the energy and atmosphere in a space. 

We might live a long time within our coping responses and be unaware of them until something happens that triggers a more intense response. New trauma, ongoing stress or life events can all make these hidden responses more extreme or appear. They might show up due to loss, grief, life changes or transitions like menopause, becoming a parent or getting married. 

This can manifest in powerful ways that force us to address our past trauma and coping habits. This might be things like:

• Emotional outbursts.

• Extreme tension, pain or (chronic) illness developing. 

• Burnout or breakdowns. 

Trauma responses can be healed, and recovery from trauma and chronic stress is possible. Often it requires different approaches, but almost always begins with a reconnection with the body and developing self-awareness. 

Further Support

For further support and understanding, you might find the following blog content supportive as you begin to explore more about trauma recovery and natural healing: 

Who’s Living Your Life?

Connecting Stress, Trauma and Fibromyalgia Pain

How To Heal From Trauma

Thriving Beyond Trauma

If you feel ready to begin exploring and unpacking your trauma responses and embark on a healing, our Love School courses and bundles are designed to support a natural, holistic recovery journey. I recommend:

Our dedicated Complex Trauma Recovery Course provides a holistic solution to recovery with online group sessions and a community discussion space.

We also recommend the following courses and bundles:

Natural Holistic Recovery

Recovery By Design 

Love School Curriculum.