Traumatic Shock
You would definitely understand what traumatic shock is if you have undergone some extraordinary stressful event that had left you feeling shattered, helpless and vulnerable. You may have struggled through the overwhelming experience of managing your upsetting emotions, frightening memories or sense of insecurity and disbelief, with a threat to life or safety.
Recognizing the causes, symptoms of traumatic shock and taking proper treatment with self-help strategies, and support from family and friends can help you to recover over the symptoms of this shock fast.
Traumatic shock could occur when you face an expected happening where you feel powerless, someone is intentionally cruel, with it happening during childhood.
It could be caused by a horrible accident, a violent attack or a natural disaster, with aspects like living under stress, a crime-ridden neighborhood, struggling with cancer also being causes. Some other causes of traumatic shock could be break-up of significant relationships, surgery, and sudden death of a near or dear or a humiliating or disappointing experience.
Symptoms of traumatic shock
You should understand that there are no best or worst ways to respond to a shock or an upsetting event, it is just that each one responds according to his or her way that largely depends on the temperament and upbringing of a person. Just believe that your reactions are normal reactions to events that are nerve shattering or overwhelming.
Some of the emotional and psychological symptoms to traumatic shock are denial, shock or disbelief, with some experiencing symptoms like anger, mood swings and irritability accompanied with feelings of shame, self-blame and guilt.
It is also common to observe feelings of sadness or hopelessness accompanied with withdrawing from others and experiencing a feeling of being numb and disconnected. It is also significant to find many experience a feeling of being confused and finding it difficult to concentrate.
In addition it is common to find other physical symptoms like sleeplessness or being disturbed by nightmares. It is also common to experience extreme fatigue with aches and pains. Besides the affected could get startled easily, experience muscle tension and a racing heart.
Being edgy and getting agitated easily could also show up as prominent symptoms. It is common to find grieving as a normal symptom after a traumatic shock, with this not only being painful but leading to a feeling of loss of security and safety. Turning to others for support and to confide in could help heal the grief gradually.
Overcoming symptoms of traumatic shock
Psychotherapy has been one of the methods that help those that have to cope up with traumatic shock, with this therapy helping patients to manage their trauma by communication to others and learning about making modifications in the way of thinking.
The education and training of those that have suffered from traumatic shock lies in communicating to them that they are not alone. You would find that this removes the shame that is felt by many and so they avoided seeking medical and psychiatric help.
With inaccurate ideas being eliminated, sufferers find it much easier to manage their anxiety and anger and are able to communicate better, with learning of breathing and relaxation skills helping them to gain mastery over most physical and emotional symptoms.
It is in addition important to know that specialists may use exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy that helps patients to recall traumatic experiences using images or verbal recall.
It is also important to note that many suffering from traumatic shock have also been helped by individual or group cognitive behavioral psychotherapy that in addition to realizing and coping with their trauma-related thoughts and beliefs also educates them regarding the relationships that exist between them and to develop alternative interpretations and to look at things in a more positive way. It is true that this therapy works best with involvement of practicing learned techniques with experiences in real life.
In addition a form of cognitive therapy, Eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing helps with the specialist guiding those that suffer from traumatic shock to talk about the trauma suffered and all the negative emotions that are attached to it.
This is done with the diversion of the professional’s rapidly moving finger. It is still more significant that help to cope with traumatic shock can be given in the form of family counseling. Here the family or couple or parents help by providing other relevant details about the behavioral patterns, sleep and socialization of the affected person.
Lastly seeing the various symptoms of traumatic shock could make one feel scared and concerned, with self help working only in some cases. A qualified and experienced trauma specialist could only help in complicated cases, with choosing the right trauma specialist requiring time and research.
In addition the quality of the relationship with your therapist is equally important. The specialist should be one that the patient is comfortable with to tell all that is troubling him or her.
He or she should be able to view the therapist as a person with whom he or she could be able to trust ones instincts, feel safe, respected, and understood to help him or her to overcome symptoms of traumatic shock.