10 Ways Trauma is Exhausting You

Trauma is a difficult thing to address. Often, people want to get as much distance from the trauma they have experienced as possible. This is an understandable response. Trauma, however, can have a way of impacting your life today.

You may not expect something that happened in the past to have a profound effect on your life now. The ways trauma influences how we feel, think, and behave are powerful. Whether the traumatic event was yesterday or fifty years ago, it can result in negative feelings today.

One of the most common symptoms of trauma is fatigue. People who have experienced trauma can feel tired, unmotivated, or drained. These feelings are real and directly connected to the trauma you experienced. The effects of trauma on the body, mind, and spirit are powerful, and they may exhaust you.

Ten ways trauma may be draining your energy

Increased stress hormones.

Trauma causes stress in your life. This can be emotionally or physically. Either way, the body responds with increased levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. These increased levels, especially for prolonged periods, can result in fatigue.

Interrupted sleep.

Some people go into a hyper-vigilant state after experiencing trauma. This is a self-preservation attempt to protect from additional trauma. Hyper-vigilance is exhausting when experienced during the day. It also impacts your sleep. Even as you sleep, the hyper-vigilant state of your mind can cause interruptions in sleep leaving you tired when you wake in the morning. Repeated nights of this have a compounding effect.

Intrusive memories.

Many people have memories of the traumatic event or events. Unfortunately, these can creep in at any time. Handling these memories is worn mentally and emotionally. Even attempts to block memories can be tiring.

Reliving trauma.

Going through a hard thing again and again, even if it is in your mind, is exhausting. It can wear you out to think about something over and over. Some people relive the experience over and over. For example, someone who was in a car accident may relive the accident every time they get in the car. This is emotionally draining.

Feelings.

Trauma comes with a complex group of feelings that evolves. Each evolution of feelings requires energy to handle. This is especially true if you are processing feelings like shame, guilt, or doubt. As there are no definitive remedies for these, it can feel endless.

Hiding or covering up.

Whether you are hiding the trauma itself or your feelings about it, that requires a lot of work. It can involve pretending, lying, and keeping secrets from people you care about. This type of work is exhausting.

Navigating ups and downs.

While you may wish your healing journey could be linear, the reality is that most people experience a journey with many ups and downs. If this is unexpected, it can catch you off guard and leave you frantically navigating the changes. Everyone experiences ups and downs in their journey. Working through them is tiring.

Isolation.

When you experience trauma, you may feel alone. It often feels like no one can understand how you feel or relate to what you are going through. Further, this can lead you to isolate yourself from people. This may seem easier, but isolating yourself is tiring and loneliness breeds fatigue.

Lack of progress.

As you deal with your trauma it is natural to want to heal and move on. The process, however, can take time. Some days may seem like you aren’t making any progress. This lack of progress can leave you feeling drained and unmotivated to keep trying.

Missing pieces.

One of the most common missing pieces in a person’s journey of healing from trauma is a connection with God. People sometimes focus only on the trauma and put it in the past. When you don’t invite God into your healing process you can feel lonely and tired because you are doing it in your strength.

How to find relief

If you are experiencing any of these things, the best way to find relief is to connect with a counselor who can help you process what you went through. A trained counselor can help with the trauma as well as the ways it is draining you. Together, you can come up with strategies that will help you as you move forward.

If you have processed trauma from your past and found healing, you may think it doesn’t affect you, but these things can still come up. This site has counselors listed who can help you learn how to experience more freedom from the trauma that is making you feel drained and fatigued. Contact this office to learn more.