It is very hard to accept pain things that have happened.. My thoughts on this may challenge what the general messaging is out there and that is 

- Do you need to accept it to cope and move forward? 

Sometimes the reason something is hard to accept is because it is unacceptable. 

I don't know that accepting a traumatic or difficult experience is needed in order to heal and move forward. Sometimes what is needed is to acknowledge that it was painful, and should not have happened and therefore the emotions that surface about it are valid and reasonable - this may be what you need to cope and move forward. 

Wow, this is a powerful response!! 

"Sometimes the reason something is hard to accept is because it is unacceptable" 

On the other end - If you do feel that accepting it will lead to helping you cope and move forward, then I would take your time with that journey of acceptance. The acceptance may not come as quick as you anticipated or expected and that is ok. There is no shame or harm in taking it a bit slower to get to a place of acceptance.

Beautifully said 💛

Yes! People can successfully recover from trauma. I have had many clients who have recovered from their trauma and are living fulfilling, joyful lives.

I would always recommend working with a professional if you feel you have experienced something traumatic and want to process it. 

If working with a professional is not something available to you, ReachOut has some great resources that are trauma specific and trauma informed to help which @Bre-RO has shared!

This reminds me of how resilient we human beings are and that there's always hope 🌅

We are so resilient, adaptable and strong!

We can become empowered and can go onto live happy, fulfilled, purpose driven lives. It is truly an honour to witness someone recover from their trauma ❤️

:') it really is @GuestPsychologistRD@GuestPsychologistRD 

I'm so sorry you have been witness to something traumatic. What you're describing sounds like a valid experience after witnessing something traumatic. 

We hold empathy and compassion for others and when we observe someone being hurt or experiencing trauma, even if we don't know them, we can often be signifantly affected. 

It is never nice to witness someone going through something difficult and I would say it displays your care and says alot about the type of person you are. 

I would reach out for support if it is starting to affect your life and become an experience of ongoing distress

Many people working in the helping / emergency and volunteering with victims fields, including medical professionals, therapists, lawyers and emergency personel experience something called 'vicarious trauma' which is when there is an overload of hearing or witnessing others trauma. This is something to be mindful of and to be managed in order to ensure it does not continue to cause ongoing distress.

I completely agree with what you said about this community member @GuestPsychologistRD This question speaks volumes about their caring character! 

PTSD is typically experienced after one, single traumatic event - e.g an isolated natural disaster, being the victim of a crime, whereas complex trauma is often experienced after multiple accumulated traumatic events or experience. Complex trauma can be the result of childhood trauma or can be experienced as an adult. There is also C-PTSD which is complex PTSD and is the combined experience of complex trauma symptoms and PTSD symptoms.

Great explanation @GuestPsychologistRD 👏 

PTSD includes symptoms such as nightmares, flashbacks, physiological symptoms including racing heart, panic attacks, chronic anxiety. The symptoms will persist 6 months post the traumatic event occuring.

Complex trauma is often an experience of the above plus erratic and unpredictable emotions, challenges in being in a relationship with others, difficulty with attention and focus, can last for years and can make it become debilitating to show up in other areas of life.

I would also say that not every challenging situation someone goes through has to be classified as traumatic. 
It is amazing how much awareness there now is about trauma however it can cause difficulties in treatment and management, if everything that is a difficult experience starts to become classified as trauma.

Excellent question! 

Many things can be classified as trauma, some of the things we know to be traumatic are sexual assault, family and domestic violence, racism and discrimination, war, loss, bullying, certain illness and physical health concerns, natural disasters. 

However as the question highlights - due to people having different reactions and responses to certain experiences you can still experience trauma even if what you have faced doesn't fall into the above categories or wasn't life threatening

It is an excellent question, right? I'm always blown away when reading through the questions we receive for AMAA's 

Trauma is the psychological/ emotional response to a distressing experience/ event or situation. Trauma can be chronic, acute or complex. It can be a response to something life threatening or what feels like (is perceived) to be life threatening but it trauma can be experienced even if the situation wasn't life threatening.