Understanding the Conscious and Unconscious Response to Trauma

My mother hit me when I was little. Spankings, grabing me hard, yelling...normal ritual of behavior change in the early Trahan household. I'm not sharing with you any information that she would not share with you if you asked her. In fact, she shares this story with most of my friends. Love you, Mom. You see, behavior is multi-generational. My mother was slapped anytime she became angry as a child. I do not know whether my grandmother was hit, she never spoke of this.

Abuse is disregard for the value and vulnerability of another through spiritual, emotional, physical, intellectual, and sexual means. In my case, it was verbal and physical. But, on one fateful day, a five year old boy had something to say to his mother. She leaned down to grab him and with tears in his eyes, he looked up at her and in an innocent plea said "Jesus wouldn't want you to treat me like this". She stopped cold in her tracks, how could she deny the truth of this statement? For this five year old boy, that was the end of the physical assaults.

Trauma is multi-faceted. Most of us have heard of a fight or flight response to distressful situations. Fight or flight are two of the responses that all creatures have when faced with heightened stimulation. A dog that has been abused and is trapped in a corner may choose to fight as a means to protect itself as a learned response to distress. Or the dog may cower or flee situations in which threatning sounds or movements remind it of prior experiences of abuse. Both responses are instinctual. Humans have similar responses.

Fight, an instinctual response, lives at the unconscious level. It manifests as a form of protection to eliminate the source of danger, thus an adaptation for safety. In a moment of trauma, fight becomes an automatic response. However, complex trauma, severe trauma, long term trauma, and adaptation to trauma result in behavioral adaptation. This unconscious instinctual response can develop into an emotional response in the conscious mind. This emotional response is called rage. Rage is anger lacking power. Despite the fact that it looks more intense than anger, it's source is a feeling of powerlessness. Since trauma may induce a sense of powerlessness in the victim, rage is an adaptation to attempt to regain power.

Flight is another unconscious response to trauma. An unconscious response of flight in traumatic situations may result in a conscious adaptation of withdrawal, dissociation, or escape to fantasy. The instinct of flight may behaviorally manifest in the victim removing themselves from the situation. However, if the victim cannot remove themselves, they may adapt by removing themselves emotionally or mentally by withdrawal and dissociation. If the brain is overwhelmed by the trauma, if it is long in duration, or if it is complex and sadistic, the brain will "turn off" or compartmentalize memories in order to avoid being overwhelmed by emotion. This is the way that the brain protects itself. If the abuse or trauma becomes ritualized or consistent, the brain adapts by creating a similar response each time that it even senses the presence of danger. If the trauma is sadistic, the brain may even compartmentalize these memories into storage within different parts of the personality, which splinter off to protect the memories and the brain from overwhelm. This can cause Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder.

There are three other responses to trauma that most people are not aware of, and rarely discussed.

Freeze is an unconscious instinctual response to trauma. For deer, freezing is an adaptation to avoid predators. A predator cannot see the deer when it is not moving. Additionally, it gives the animal a moment to seek the best possible escape route. Humans have a similar adaptation. The freeze mechanism is intended to prevent greater harm by inducing a sense of paralysis which prevents greater harm from being accomplished to the victim. If a victim is frozen, it's perpetrator may not focus it's attention on the victim or may lose interest. Paralysis is a protection mechanism. In domestic violence cases, a victim freezes when their mate comes through the door or just prior to physical abuse. This is the brain's attempt to minimize and prepare for damage. For men, this response is often considered "wimpy". Sometimes it's helpful for men to know that this response is purely instinctual, and may not be determined by conscious choices. As a result of ongoing unconscious responses of freeze, the person will develop a conscious response called inhibition. Inhibition is an adaptation to the unconscious freeze response to trauma. People who feel inhibited may be responding to one time or series of traumatic events during which they unconsciously responded with a freeze instinct.

Surrender is another unconscious response to trauma. Possums and armadillos exhibit this response in their instinct to "play dead". Surrender, like freeze, is a response to minimize danger by discouraging attention, evoking sympathy, and mimimizing threat. The goal of a surrender response is for the perpetrator to lose interest. This unconscious response in human beings results in conscious behavior of minimization. Avoiding exposure, hiding in the woodwork, and avoiding are conscious manifestations of minimizing to seek safety. If the victim feels that they cannot avoid the traumatic event, they may surrender and withdrawal in order to minimize the length, duration and severity of trauma.

Finally, the last unconscious response is to tend and befriend. Tend and befriend is a very common response to domestic violence. Often a woman, but occassionally a man, will unconsciously respond to the distress of domestic violence by tending to the source of distress, the perpetrator. "If I only have dinner ready for him when he gets home", a stereotypical line that may denote a response of tend and befriend. By befriending and tending to the source of distress, an attempt is made to reduce danger, to appease the perpetrator. Again, animals portray this behavior, especially in packs. The alpha is often attended to more than other animals due to it's position of power in the structure. When a person responds unconsciously with tend and befriend, they may begin over time to develop a conscious acting out of the trauma. This comes in the form of obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions may become outward oriented such as making sure that the house is cleaned, making enough money to please her, or preparing his favorite meal. However, when there is not a continuous outward source of danger, the victim may remain in distress and refocus the obsession inward on itself to obtain satisfaction and relief from the danger. A young woman who is sexually abused may tend and befriend herself by increasing her food intake and becoming obese, to diminish interest from another outside perpetrator. Or perhaps she was sexually and physically abused, and learned that it was more beneficial to sexually seduce a partner to avoid the physical beating that may ensue. She is not only tending and befriending him, but herself as well. Cutting behavior is one of the behaviors that we see with this kind of response to trauma. Cutting becomes a physiological way to manage the internal distress held by a victim.

These five responses to trauma are ingenious in their own way. Our deepest need is survival, and these responses help us in moments of distress. Unfortunately, these responses can become fixed, and manifest in conscious behaviors as noted above. There are methods of processing the trauma, but processing must begin with understanding of responses and conscious behaviors.

If you know of someone who has experienced trauma, from physical to sexual to intellectual/psychological, or spiritual, encourage them to seek help from a professional. It will help them to manage a low threshold of distress. They will have greater functioning in life.