Most of us have been through something in our lives we suffer trauma from.  It could anything from childhood to adulthood.  Some of us are unfortunate enough to have traumas all through life.  A lot of people assume that you cannot have PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) unless you served in the military.  This is false.  PTSD comes in different forms and is caused by many different things.  You can also have trauma responses without having PTSD. 

There is four trauma responses Flight, Fight, Freeze and Fawn.  Each of these comes with a list of examples.  I will go over the four responses below and use them in examples later.

Flight mode-Overthinking, workaholic, anxiety, not being able to rest, striving for perfection, avoidance, hyperactivity, sadness, and loneliness.

Fight mode-Angry outbursts, need for control, bullying, explosive behavior, irritability, self-harm.

Freeze mode-Difficulty making decisions, feeling stuck, isolation, shutting down, exhaustion, excessive sleeping.

Fawn mode-Need to please others, always feeling overwhelmed, not able to set boundaries, codependency, self-criticizing.

While I am sure most of us feel some of these things at least occasionally, imagine feeling most of them at most times.  More so feeling a multitude of them after something happens.  Toxic relationships can mess with you in more ways than you understand until you do the work on yourself to understand it. 

As I have mentioned before I never have to work to come up with a topic for my blog.  Something within the week always happens that gives me inspiration.  This week it was my son.  About once or twice a week he and I take time to just talk.  Never an agenda, and never scheduled. 

One night this week my son was struggling with his girlfriend.  He had walked her out to her vehicle after she had been here visiting (like the gentleman his mama is raising him to be), when he came back in, he came directly to my room.  I always know that it is time for a mama-son talk when he does this.  He was never allowed to do this when we lived with my ex.

As my son and I were having our conversation that night we talked a lot about the last few years of our lives.  Hearing the pain and seeing the look on his face as he talked about his experiences living with my ex over the last two years is the most heart wrenching thing to sit through.  It truly makes me feel like a failure as a mom.  I told him that night that I was so sorry he had to live through that, and I wish I could take it all back.  Then my son, wise beyond his years, looked me dead in the face and said “NO! I don’t want to take it back.  Everything we went through over the last few years made us who we are today, and I like who we are today.”  Ladies if my son can look back on his hard past and view it this way, there is absolutely no reason we as adult, strong women cannot do this.  No matter what life throws at us, if we strive to improve ourselves and our lives, we are working toward goddess mode.

During this conversation he gave me several examples of things that happen that still trigger trauma responses in him.  Hence why I felt it important to talk about trauma responses. 

My son is 16 years old.  During the time we were living with my ex he would work from after school until 8:30 p.m., putting him home around 9:00 p.m. every night.  When he would get home, he always sat next to me on the couch so we could talk about his day.  My ex would get upset because he couldn’t hear his show, tell us to be quiet and proceed to turn the TV up louder to overpower our conversation.  After weeks of this my son quit stopping on his way in the house to say hello and retreat downstairs to his bedroom in the basement.  The trauma of getting in trouble for having a conversation about his day had pushed in into Flight Mode, which he would just avoid by going directly downstairs.  My trauma from constantly walking on eggshells with this man made me avoid, but allowing him to continue to treat us this way.

My ex and I only worked until 4:00 every day, so we always had dinner around 5:00-5:30.  Since my son was working later, I would make him a plate and leave it out for easy reheating when he got home.  Mind you I would cook dinner, do the dishes, plate up my ex’s food and deliver it to him while he sat on the couch on his phone.  However, me leaving a plate out for my son was wrong in some way.  This was a huge fight, until I went into flight mode.  In order to avoid conflict, I started putting my son’s food in a separate Tupperware container in the fridge to be able to easily heat when he got home.  When my son would get home, I would get up and heat his food up.  This again would create tension and a fight.  He would tell my son there is no reason I should be heating up his food for him, he is perfectly capable of heating up his own.  Please remember this man just sat and played on his phone the whole time I cooked dinner and served him an already made plate.

I mentioned in my blog a few weeks ago that I felt like my son could do nothing right in my exes’ eyes.  During our conversation that night I mentioned that to him.  He again looked me dead in the eyes and said “Do you know how nice it is to actually want to come home after work?  To not have to worry about what I will get yelled at for this time.”  Again, heart breaking.  Ladies do not let your kids grow up feeling this way.  It is unfair and creates trauma for them. 

I am not going to give examples of everything he said that night, but a few important things he mentioned.  He said he got up the other night to get a snack.  I was already in bed.  He dropped a bag of chips on the floor.  He told me that he literally shook and stopped what he was doing when that happened and then remembered that my ex wasn’t around anymore.  This boy was so scared of getting yelled at for dropping a bag of chips it caused him to physically shake and freeze in fear.  Until he remembered he was safe.

I could go on with stories, but the moral of this story is we all respond to trauma.  Trauma comes in many different forms.  Most of what I see from people I know have had trauma, is overthinking, feeling anxious, avoidance, need for control, isolating, difficulty making decisions, complete shutdown, exhaustion, feeling overwhelmed, and being self-criticizing.  Instead of labeling yourself as crazy, or unreasonable.  Do some self-works and really figure out are you responding to past trauma?  I know I still respond to past trauma, and I have to catch myself and figure out what triggered it in order to prevent myself from doing it.  What trauma responses do you see in yourself?  Do you know what is triggering them? 

Do you find it easier to keep quiet rather than talk about something to avoid conflict?  This is a trauma response.  Do you feel the need to control every detail of your life so nothing can go wrong?  This is a trauma response. Do you feel like everyone in your life is going to hurt you?  This is a trauma response.  Do you feel like it is easier to have no one in your life?  This is a trauma response.

Having trauma responses is not wrong.  It is very normal for you to respond to trauma.  It shows that you have lived and learned.  The key is to be aware of yourself.  Always be working on yourself.  If you are having responses to trauma, identify what the trauma is you are responding to.  Are you still in the situation causing you the trauma?  If so, get out!  If not, work on identifying how to control your response by reassuring yourself you are strong.  The road from Hot Mess to Goddess self-work and self-love.