How Trauma Impacts Relationships

Trauma makes it hard to be happy and live in the present moment with those you love.

It all begins with a feeling in the body. A situation activates the trauma response and causes a chain reaction ruining your day. You go from feeling calm, interested, and excited to feeling uncomfortable, closed off, and upset without really knowing what happened. It happens so fast. Maybe it’s that feeling of tension, of walking on eggshells that causes you to feel uncomfortable activating your nervous system. Often patterns from the past are repeated in relationships with others, whether they are helpful to us or not. There may or may not be a level of awareness about what caused the sudden shift in mood. The truth is having a relationship as a person who has experienced trauma can be very difficult. People often question their own judgement and having difficulty discerning a safe healthy relationship from one that is not safe.

Trauma Impacts the Brain

Since trauma often occurs in relationships with others, it can greatly impact relationships with others. Whether that be a relationship with a partner or significant other, a friendship, or any other kind of relationships. Any type of relationship can be impacted by trauma. When the nervous system is activated people feel on edge, irritable and suspicious. The focus changes to protecting oneself rather than relationship building. When a person experiences a trigger in the environment the brain activates the nervous system flight or fight mode which has many effects on relationships. This change that happens in the body and mind are normal responses to having experienced a traumatic event or set of conditions. Changes in relationships are normal after having experiencing trauma.

Trauma Impacts Relationships and Feelings of Safety

When the nervous system is activated it is difficult to be as loving and open as one would like to be in a relationship. This can impact many things in relationships such as physical touch, emotional intimacy, or even prevent someone from being supportive of a partner in achieving a goal. Trauma can change the perception of a relationship from “We are working together” to “It’s me vs. them”. This can be a hard shift in a relationship because defense mechanisms are activated and people often feel cut off and emotionally distant from their partner. It makes the relationship difficult because there is a shift of “we are in this together” to feeling as if each person is in the relationship alone, which causes conflict and many types of defenses that can jeopardize the relationship and lead to feelings of betrayal and resentment.

Trauma Impacts Communication

Trauma causes conflict in relationships. It is difficult to talk through problems calmly when the nervous system is activated. Sometimes it makes it difficult to communicate openly for people who have had negative past experiences. Some may passively agree while others might yell or shut others out. This can be really confusing for both of the people in a relationship. This is a main cause for conflict and the cause of many fights about relationship stressors. The trauma discerning brain also makes it easy to wrongly assume another person’s intent or misread facial expressions, which often escalates conflict and add fuel to the fire.

Trauma Impacts Positive Feelings

Trauma can make it difficult to feel relaxed, have positive feelings, or make it difficult to enjoy a positive event such as a wedding or get together with friends. When the nervous system is activated it can be difficult to turn it off and enjoy the present moment, regardless of how special the occasion is or how much someone wants to create happy memories with those they love, the nervous system takes over and makes them on edge and alert.

Trauma Impacts Self-Perception

Past trauma that is unmanaged often causes dysregulation of the nervous system, people who have experienced trauma may blame themselves when they have difficulty managing symptoms. They may struggle with reminders of the event, question their judgement, or blame themselves feeling like they should have done something differently. Often people who have experience trauma are self-critical and feel a lot of shame for what happened to them.

Trauma Therapy

Trauma therapy can be effective in helping relieve the symptoms trauma has on relationships. If you or someone you love is struggling it is never too early to get help. Many widely accepted forms of therapy focus on choosing positive thoughts. Thought work is a piece of the puzzle, but there is a missing piece. A piece that is often overlooked and sets therapy up to be unsuccessful. When the nervous system is activated it greatly impacts relationships. The key to managing nervous system activation is to train the brain and body on how to achieve a calm regulated state. It is possible but it takes practice and lots of intention to create a sense of safety within the body and mind. Read more about trauma on the blog or read more about treatment information.

As always, I hope you take care of yourself andif you have any questions about starting trauma treatment I offer a free consult to see if we are a good fit for working together.