Trauma Informed Care; We Have Evolved to be at risk for Trauma; Here is Why

Trauma Informed Care

We have fantastic and astonishing memory abilities. The human mind and its processes, particularly in the way we store and retrieve the effective memories, then affect the way that we store and respond to our other memories and sensory input. Evolutionary psychology examines the way some things that can be problematic are often helpful to us in the past and as we evolved. This is especially true for trauma survivors. According to the American Psychological Association, trauma is an emotional response to an event like an accident, rape, or natural disaster, abuse or assault. Immediately after the event, shock, emotional upheaval, loss of ability to function, and denial are typical. Trauma is especially present in situations where a person feels powerless and their sense of control is taken. Long term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships and even physical symptoms like headaches or nausea, nightmares, inability to rest or calm down, feeling tearful, experiencing fear and heightened startle response. While these feelings are a very universal response to the paralyzing fear that is associated with trauma, some people have difficulty moving on with their lives because trauma can result in long term effects such as PTSD, acute stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and addiction.

Who Needs Trauma-Informed Care?

Anyone who has experienced a traumatic event, whether recently or in the distant past, can benefit from trauma-informed care. This includes people who have survived abuse, neglect, accidents, violence, natural disasters, sudden loss, or ongoing stressful situations that overwhelmed their ability to cope.

But trauma-informed care is not only for people with a formal PTSD diagnosis. According to the World Health Organization, about 70% of adults worldwide experience at least one traumatic event in their lifetime. Many of those people never develop PTSD, but the experience still leaves a mark on how they think, feel, and relate to others.

Trauma-informed care is also important for people who may not recognize their experiences as trauma. Someone who grew up with emotional neglect, lived with an unpredictable parent, or experienced bullying may not use the word “trauma” to describe what happened, but those experiences still shaped their nervous system and their behavior.

At its core, trauma-informed care means that every interaction, whether in a therapy session, a doctor’s office, or a classroom, takes into account the possibility that the person has been affected by trauma. A licensed therapist trained in this approach creates a safe, predictable environment where healing can happen at a pace that feels manageable.

Types of Traumatic Events

There are so many events that we experience which are traumatic. Whether these develop into the more complex constellation of behaviors which we identify as PTSD really depends on an interplay of biological, social, and other environmental factors. Some of the situations which can cause a trauma response include domestic violence, sexual violence or assault, car accidents, national tragedies, serving in war, and robberies. It is possible that we can experience a traumatic response by witnessing these events even if we are not the direct recipient of the threatening attack.

How Our Brains Evolved to Remember Trauma

People who later feel the emotional and physical effects of trauma may wonder, what is wrong with me? Also, even if the event seemed manageable in the moment, it seems bizarre that they keep seeing flashes of it months or years later. The answer is while the effects of trauma can be debilitating, our cognitive processes are primed to be traumatized.

Evolution explains that we and our ancestors are wired to hold tight to frightening or threatening experiences. Imagine what happened to all of the humans who did not startle and produce massive amounts of cortisol and adrenaline at the sight of the saber toothed tiger just through the northern passage on the savannah. They did not evolve to have offspring in our gene pool. Having memory of dangerous events, people, situations, and gearing up to flee or protect yourself is a sign of an evolutionarily healthy adaptation. It allows us to stay safe by avoiding possibly dire situations.

In fact, our vagal nerve communicates directly to our bodies without having to yield the advice of our logic. There are long term changes in the way that our vagal nerve responds to triggers after we have experienced trauma. The vagal nerve is what allows healthy people to experience the “startle response,” for example when someone sneaks up behind you, usually we respond with a physical jerking motion in our bodies and literally jumping. In domestic violence survivors, being easily startled when a person raises their hand is a well noted phenomenon that may last an entire lifetime.

How Trauma Triggers Activate the Body

We are wired to remember traumatic events. Survivors of trauma know that the sight of the perpetrator of their violence, even a coat that is the same color as the one their attacker had worn, can evoke the fear response. “Triggers” are any stimuli which we associate with the traumatic event. These triggers and their associated memories can and do produce a jolt to the vagal nerve resulting in heightened, panicked, and anxious responses in the person who is perceiving them.

The biological response when we encounter a trigger is significant. Our bodies enter a state of hyper-arousal, respiration becomes more shallow, heart rate rises, and fear settles in. Even cognitive function is impaired as our higher order reasoning is impeded and all neurological resources are yielded to the hind brain and its motor and autonomic functions. The one and only thought becomes fight, flight, survive, and in some cases freeze. Remember, just like on the savannah in the seat of civilization, the extra energy our bodies create allows us to escape danger.

What Does a PTSD Flashback Look Like?

A PTSD flashback looks and feels like the traumatic event is happening again in the present moment. The person may suddenly feel intense fear, panic, or helplessness, even when there is no actual danger around them. Their body reacts as if the threat is real, with a racing heart, sweating, shaking, difficulty breathing, or a feeling of being frozen in place.

Flashbacks are not the same as bad memories. During a regular memory, you know you are remembering something from the past. During a flashback, the brain loses its sense of time. The images, sounds, smells, and emotions from the original event flood back in a way that feels completely present and real.

Some flashbacks are obvious, with a person visibly distressed, crying, or shutting down. Others are more subtle. A person might zone out mid-conversation, suddenly become irritable, or feel disconnected from their surroundings without understanding why. These are sometimes called emotional flashbacks, and they are common in people who experienced repeated trauma, especially in childhood.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 3.6% of U.S. adults experienced PTSD in the past year, and 36.6% of those cases involved serious impairment. EMDR therapy is one of the most effective approaches for reducing the intensity and frequency of flashbacks by helping the brain reprocess the traumatic memory so it no longer triggers a present-moment response.

What Are Common PTSD Triggers?

Common PTSD triggers are sensory reminders of the traumatic event. These include specific sounds, smells, images, physical sensations, locations, or situations that the brain connects, consciously or unconsciously, to the original trauma.

For example, a car backfiring might trigger someone who experienced combat or gun violence. A specific cologne might trigger someone who was assaulted. A raised voice might trigger someone who grew up in a household with domestic violence. The trigger itself does not have to be dangerous. It just has to be similar enough to something the brain filed as a threat during the original event.

Emotional states can also be triggers. Feeling trapped, powerless, ignored, or caught off guard can activate the same survival response as the original trauma, even in completely safe situations. Anniversaries, holidays, or certain times of year are also common triggers.

The brain’s amygdala, which processes fear and threat detection, does not always distinguish between a real danger and a reminder of a past one. Research has shown that the amygdala becomes hyperactive in people with PTSD, which means it fires alarm signals faster and more intensely than it should. Working with a therapist who specializes in trauma and PTSD can help you identify your specific triggers and learn to respond to them differently over time.

What Does Unresolved Childhood Trauma Look Like in Adults?

Unresolved childhood trauma looks like difficulty trusting others, fear of abandonment, people-pleasing, chronic anxiety, emotional outbursts that feel out of proportion, trouble setting boundaries, and a deep sense that something is wrong with you even when nothing is actually wrong.

Many adults carry the effects of childhood trauma without connecting their current struggles to their early experiences. A child who was neglected may grow into an adult who feels invisible in relationships. A child who was punished for expressing emotions may become an adult who shuts down during conflict. These patterns feel like personality traits, but they are often survival strategies that were built in childhood and never updated.

The CDC-Kaiser Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study found that about 61% of adults reported experiencing at least one adverse childhood experience. The study also showed that the more ACEs a person had, the higher their risk for depression, anxiety, substance use, and chronic health conditions in adulthood.

The connection between what happened in childhood and how you function as an adult is well documented. Attachment therapy is particularly effective for adults whose childhood experiences shaped how they connect with others, helping them build healthier relationship patterns from the ground up.

What Childhood Trauma Causes Overthinking?

Childhood trauma that involves unpredictability, emotional neglect, or inconsistent caregiving is most likely to cause overthinking in adulthood. When a child grows up in an environment where they could not predict what would happen next, their brain learns to stay on high alert and analyze everything as a way to feel safe.

Overthinking is essentially the brain’s attempt to prepare for every possible outcome so it is never caught off guard again. A child who had to read a parent’s mood to avoid conflict, or who never knew when affection or anger was coming, develops a pattern of constantly scanning, analyzing, and second-guessing. That pattern does not stop just because the child grows up and leaves the environment.

This kind of hypervigilance is exhausting. It shows up as replaying conversations, worrying about what other people think, struggling to make decisions, and lying awake at night running through scenarios that may never happen.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 6.8% of U.S. adults will experience PTSD at some point in their lives, and many more carry subclinical effects from childhood adversity that never meet the full diagnostic criteria but still significantly affect daily functioning. Cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the most effective tools for breaking the overthinking cycle because it teaches you to recognize and challenge the thought patterns that your brain created to keep you safe as a child.

Is Oversharing a Trauma Response?

Yes, oversharing can be a trauma response. People who have experienced trauma sometimes share very personal information quickly or in situations where it does not feel appropriate, not because they lack boundaries, but because their nervous system is trying to create connection and safety as fast as possible.

This is especially common in people who experienced childhood neglect or emotional invalidation. If you grew up feeling unseen or unheard, you may have learned that the only way to be noticed is to share something big. In adulthood, that pattern continues. You meet someone new and within minutes you are telling them things you would not normally share, not because you want to, but because your brain is wired to seek closeness quickly as a form of protection.

Oversharing can also happen after a traumatic event as a way to process what happened. The brain is trying to make sense of the experience by telling the story over and over again, sometimes to people who are not equipped to hold that kind of information.

This does not mean something is wrong with you. It means your nervous system is doing what it learned to do under difficult circumstances. Somatic therapy can help you become more aware of these automatic patterns and build a healthier relationship between what your body feels and how you respond in social situations.

Healing Through Trauma-Informed Therapy

Cognitive processing therapy, systematic desensitization, exposure therapy, and some therapies which aim to change the tone of the vagal nerve are recommended ways to work through the trauma and empower the survivor to be able to withstand exposure to triggers and regain emotional wellness. It is recommended that trauma survivors do their best to limit exposure to triggers as they heal from the event and associated memories.

If you feel that you may be experiencing long term effects from a traumatic situation, it is recommended that you work with a therapist who is specifically trained in trauma informed care. Healing will allow the processing of the entire event. Client and therapist will identify triggers, develop the capacity to respond to triggers with mindful balance, and work through the effects of any other psychological effects from the trauma.

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