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In the United States, 70% of adults have experienced a traumatic event in their life. Trauma can have many faces. It may look like a one-time event or a whole childhood with alcoholic or emotionally neglectful parents. Trauma can physiologically and structurally create changes in our body and brains. The earlier in our life and the longer amount of time that we experience those events, the more significant those changes may be. Also how we respond during that trauma can affect the degree of impact it has on us. Addressing our trauma experiences, though, can lead to significant change and relief.

Trauma impacts so many systems within an individual- our physical body with our digestive and immune systems, our brain with the structures and neurochemicals functioning there, and our mind with our perceptions, cognitions, and interpretations.

This blog will look at some of those structural changes that occur in the brain and body. As trauma impacts so much of our population, it’s so important to spread awareness of the unseen impacts of trauma as well as the health benefits of addressing your trauma history.

The Developing Brain

When trauma occurs during the brain’s development, especially in the first few years of life, it can shift the sequences that the brain would typically develop in. It will give priority to the areas of the brain that will help itself react to the stressors of the environment you are living in. This could include the sounds of fighting parents and domestic violence or the neglect of emotionally and physically absent, addicted, or overwhelmed parents. It can also include the impacts of negative health conditions and illness, poor nutrition, poverty, and more.

This diagram below is a simplified version of how the brain typically develops in sections (from the bottom up) and the responsibilities of some of those main sections. Now each section is not fully completed before the next begins-they can be developing simultaneously at times at different rates. Trauma can impact those rates immensely by prioritizing some areas over others because they are being activated and needed more. If our childhood is a constant state of startle responses or needs that aren’t met- then the priority is survival, not higher-order thinking and emotional regulation.

The brainstem and the more primitive parts of the brain develop first, as they control our breathing, heart rate, and basic functions necessary to survive in and out of the womb. The limbic system is the emotional center of the brain, housing the amygdala, thalamus, hypothalamus, hippocampus, and more. These areas deal with the regulation of emotions, memories, motivation, attraction, learning, arousal, and more. The amygdala can trigger the fight-or-flight response as the primitive brain helps carry it out. Finally, the prefrontal cortex is sometimes considered the more rational part of the brain, helping us pause and think through our actions and responses- verbally and cognitively. It helps us plan, imagine, and reflect on our interactions. It is also an area that helps us empathize with others.

Trauma can negatively impact the areas of the brain that assess future threats, respond to future threats (stress), regulate our emotions, register or become aware of our physical sensations, and feel happiness, joy, motivation, and confidence. It alters our own perceptions and our ability to use our imagination. It can also alter our brainwaves and memories. Many individuals with a history of childhood trauma can not remember a majority of their childhood. Memory loss and memory distortion is common in traumatized individuals with known and proven trauma histories. It can also impact mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, suicide, substance abuse, and more, as it can alter the production and reception of certain neurochemicals.

Click below for a blog on the developmental impact of traumatic childhood experiences within a narcissistic household.

Your Body

There are also numerous health impacts of chronic trauma exposure (CPTSD). Untreated trauma is thought to be impactful in most major health conditions like asthma, diabetes, cancer, heart, lung, and kidney disease, fibromyalgia, and more immune system and inflammation disorders.

One area of impact that often isn’t discussed is the continued dissociation that traumatized individuals can have with their body as a whole. Some people can report that they don’t feel whole areas of their body or they lose their internal cues for hunger, sleep, and motivation.

If you recall in my previous trauma blogs- as our fight-or-flight system is continually activated and left activated (as happens with chronic trauma experiences) it can begin to reverse how that system is intended to work. It can lead to the brain interpreting a lot of ‘false threats’ and cueing the body to feel on edge, anxious, or frozen. This can lead a lot of individuals with unresolved trauma to feel unsafe in their own bodies as they may be unaware of their sensory triggers or feel unable to control their body’s responses. This can lead to avoidance and dissociation, which means they lose touch with their body’s internal cues more and more. As we lose awareness of our body’s needs, we also lose control over its regulation. Often traumatized individuals’ experience of panic attacks is heightened more by their fear of the bodily experiences associated with a panic attack than by the triggering thoughts or events.

This is why it can be so beneficial to work with a trauma specialist to help you regain a connection with your body and build comfort with experiencing your emotional and physical responses. Just focusing on your thoughts or memories is ignoring the very real bodily reactions you have to trauma and how they can be impacting your life. Trauma therapists may refer clients to work with somatic specialists or to engage in yoga and meditation to build a sense of comfort and awareness with their body while addressing the bodily sensations associated with their client’s trauma.

Treating Trauma

Treating trauma is a multidisciplinary approach, meaning it needs to be addressed through multiple approaches that may include more than your trauma therapist. As I just mentioned, referring clients to engage in body work with a yoga instructor or somatic therapist would be an example of this. Having client’s address eating disorders or substance abuse with another specialist can also occur as well as working with a general practitioner for medical needs that may have resulted from long-term trauma exposure. Remember that therapists often work within their certain specialties (though anxiety and depression is often covered by all therapists) and they may recommend you work with a team, either simultaneously or once you reach your goals within one area.

This may occur more often with individuals that have experienced chronic trauma in their childhood than it would with other mental health needs because of the range of impacts that chronic trauma exposure can have on your whole bodily system.

Check back for my follow-up blog discussing the most common forms of trauma treatment and what each approach can help assist with. Get a head start by checking out my previous blog on EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) which is a widely recognized trauma therapy intervention.