What Does it Feel Like to Have Trauma?

The inside of everyone’s trauma is the same. I have been there many times, both on my own and sitting beside my clients, bearing witness. The landscape is familiar, haunting, and terrible. Often, it’s difficult for me to watch and unbearable for the person experiencing it. The ingredients: the panic of an animal trying to skitter away from predators, and overwhelming waves of despair that you fear will never end.  

For people whose trauma is buried in the unremembered past, the fear is a window that provides clues as to what happened. If you can fight the urge to run from your anxiety and learn to open the window, the trauma can be released, and sunlight can stream in to replace the darkness. 

Today I sat with my client Sydney, feeling in my body what she felt: hyperventilating breaths that shook her chest, tears that heated her face to a tomato red, and breath caught in her throat so that she was unable to exhale. Because Sydney’s trauma was so similar to mine –  sexual abuse perpetrated by a close family member – I could feel alongside her and knew what experiencing those sensations was like. I took deep breaths and reminded her to do the same. 

 “I feel SO awful and nothing stops the feeling,” she sobbed. 

“This is temporary,” I told her. “It will pass soon and you will feel like yourself again.”

She told me that all weekend, she’d been stuck in the feeling. Nothing she did helped pull her out. 

“Your feelings are saying that your life is in danger. Look around at your apartment, think about your week at work. Is that actually the case?”

She stopped sobbing and was able speaking more clearly. “No. Everything in my life is ok. Nothing is unsafe.”

“Then you can be sure that these feelings are coming from the past. This is what it felt like to be you as a little girl. Ask yourself what age you are and see what number comes to mind.”

“Seven,” she said. Her eyes were shut and she was deep in remembering.

As soon as Sydney recognized this was a problem from the past resurfacing, her anxiety calmed, her breath slowed, and her face began to return to its normal color. The episode that had felt never ending faded, and she was able to regain her composure. This is how quickly we can shift out of the trauma and into our rational way of thinking. 

When you are in your trauma, the vinyl record of emotion is skipping and stuck playing note over and over again. What is happening emotionally feels like the only thing that exists. The worst moments of your life hijack your reality, making you feel the way you did when the trauma happened. You lose perspective of past, present and future, and you become convinced that you will never feel better again.

Over the course of our sessions, I will teach Sydney the steps for breaking free of those never-ending moments. First, ask yourself if the emotion is true in the present. If the answer is no, ask yourself the age of the emotion. Then, learn to sit with the suffering child surfacing from within, and let her express her emotion until it passes. Sydney will learn to do this each time the swell of emotion takes over. Slowly, the swells will lessen, and she will feel better more quickly. Eventually, she will notice that the feelings that had always lingered below the surface – low-level anxiety, self-consciousness, and fear of others – have disappeared, and she will feel confident, calm, and excited about her future. 

I love watching the transformation that happens when people heal their trauma. Healing feels like a gasp of the air of freedom. You burst to the surface after years underwater and take big, life-filling breaths. You realize how long it has been since you were able to breathe. Often, people feel a pang of sadness that it took them so long to acknowledge their suffering. But the sadness passes, and they are able to fully appreciate their new way of being: one of belonging, of feeling part of a world that’s full of possibility.