When you have experienced trauma, it can be hard to trust that the world is a safe place. This can be made even more challenging when living through volatile times that further trigger our trauma responses. Our Senior Counsellor Michelle reflects here on how we might find a path through…

During the pandemic, I attended an online workshop about working with trauma at a time of collective trauma.  The world was in survival mode, and understandably so.  Six years on and I find myself often thinking about that training – the world feels to be at war and people again are dying.  On top of the trauma of seeing how people in other countries are suffering, here in the UK there is growing anxiety about our own safety, even more so for those of us targeted by hate crimes and terrorism that also seem to be on the increase.

It is hard – perhaps impossible – not to be affected.  I notice my own anxiety increasing as events across the world and the UK unfold, despite my efforts of self-preservation. I don’t “doomscroll” and control my exposure to the news to avoid overwhelm.

I also see the impact on my clients. When we have experienced sexual violence, it can be hard to trust that the world is a safe place, and it’s incredibly difficult to believe it isn’t inherently bad when it feels so volatile.

This reaction is completely understandable, as are the trauma responses we see around us in other people, including our world leaders.  We see fight mode, perhaps most obviously in the wars we are witnessing around the world, but also closer to home.  It plays out in heated debates on social media or even in acts of hate towards groups of people who are seen to be the cause of the problem.

We see flight as others run away from the reality, avoiding the news or even interacting with other people.  We see fawn in people who try to appease the majority, or those with strong views and voices.  We see flop in those who feel helpless in the face of a threatening world.  Others we see just simply freeze as they dissociate or numb themselves from the violence around them.

These responses are triggered by the back part of our brain that is tasked with our basic survival, not the front part of the brain that enables us to think logically and with understanding of the viewpoints of others.  And whilst they may not always be helpful or can seem misplaced, they are a really understandable reaction, especially in those who have been through trauma in their personal lives too.

To clarify, what I’m saying isn’t that speaking out about what we believe in or controlling the amount of bad news we absorb, for example, are always trauma responses.  The trick is to try and unpick if these actions are a reaction or action: a knee jerk response to a threat or one that has been thought out and feels deliberate and planned.

It is also about finding people on the same page. One thing we know is that connection is an antidote to trauma, whilst disconnect enables feelings fuelled by traumatic events to grow.  Being with others who feel similarly to us can help us to dismantle survivor guilt and the shame felt because we feel we “should” be doing more about a situation that we have such limited power over.

The world does feel dangerous right now, and it’s understandable that so many of us are living our lives in survival mode.  But maybe by connecting with others and finding a way to manage our trauma responses, we can do what we can with the tools that we have right now to make the world just a little bit kinder – and safer – for ourselves and the people around us.

Michelle Buckberry,
Senior Counsellor