The impact of psychological trauma

Mertha Mo Nyamande

THIS week we are going to focus on trauma.

Trauma — which is poorly understood, just like most mental health issues — is identified as being at the core of most of the physical and mental disorders that develop into mental illnesses.

Trauma is mainly understood from the biological, psychological and social/spiritual perspectives.

In biology, it is the injury to the first layer of defence or protection, which is the skin. The depth of the wound is usually what constitutes the element of traumatic injury, often referred to as “trauma to the head” et cetera.

Someone who has been shot will present with a traumatic bullet wound.

From a psychological, social and spiritual perspective, there may not be blood and cuts for a situation to be traumatic. A child anticipating the divorce of parents could be traumatised by the potential loss and fears of what life could be like without the protection of either parent.

Similarly, as the world followed events of the September 11, 2001 bombing in the United States, most did not actually see dead people or even the injured. The mere imagination of how people could have been affected caused secondary trauma among those who watched or heard of the event from any part of the globe.

There is also vicarious trauma, where experiences of others are carried on to other people who may not even know about the traumatic event. This is particularly evident in children of war veterans or survivors of rape and other traumas who live with a parent that has developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In the eyes of a child, whatever behaviour their parents display is normal to them and, as such, traumas can be passed down many generations.

As they grow up and have their own families, they replay what they would have learnt from their parents without knowing that those were traumatic responses.

A parent’s overprotectiveness as a result of fears that lead to violent outbursts can be seen by the child as a normal way to love.

The idea of gender-based violence or domestic violence stems from these types of backgrounds. It is not that the couple wants to be violent, but mostly, these are the things they would have known and normalised to mean love.

They would have learnt that “dad has to be aggressive to show he loves me”.

It gets interpreted thus: “This is what should happen with my husband as well to show that he loves me”.

There is a strange case of a woman who divorced her husband because he was not hitting her, as this is what love meant for her.

While there are all these difficult dynamics in relationships, traumatic experiences are largely responsible for a wide range of outcomes.

Women would also have learnt ways in which they evoke violent and aggressive responses. Coupled with the aggressive guy they picked, the combination amounts to violent households.

Traumatic responses do not only result in violence and aggression, but can also manifest in anxiety disorders that PTSD is a part of, or obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) as a way the brain tries to govern itself by controlling objects outside of it, which is often an impossible task.

The rituals in OCD typically get worse each time because whatever the brain is trying to establish is not happening, and so the frustration intensifies the reactions.

Eventually, traumatic responses lead to depression, when the individual loses all hope of getting help.

More often, those traumatised end up resorting to all sorts of vices to try and tame their beast. The vices include addictions, drug and alcohol abuse, and promiscuity.

But these increase chances of contracting blood-borne viruses like Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS due to unprotected and unregulated indulgences.

This also leads to civil and criminal offences.

The likelihood of going to prison or being exposed to further trauma is high in such cases.

So, as we run all sorts of awareness campaigns, let us not forget to address the fire beneath all this smoke and heat killing our communities, families and children.

Psychological trauma is one of the worst disorders since it is not always visible.

Mertha Mo Nyamande is a psychotherapist. He can be contacted on: [email protected] or @ www.i-wellbeing.weebly.com