I recently started working with a young man who endured a very serious traumatic event and now is living with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety as a result. The fellow is feeling as though he has lost himself because of what happened to him about a year ago and recently wondered aloud to me if he is some kind of “freak” for feeling the way he does. I tried to assure him that considering what he went through, his feelings are completely normal.

Everyone responds to traumatic events differently; there is no right or wrong way to respond to something horrible that happens to you. I told the fellow I am working with that one in five people live with mental illness and that millions of people live with depression every year. According to some statistics, some seven to eight people out of every 100 in the United States struggle with PTSD.

When the body is confronted with a traumatic event, the body engages the fight-flight-freeze response. It is something your body uses to protect you from danger. When you feel threatened physically or emotionally, the fight-flight-freeze response is automatically triggered and several feelings can arise, including increased heart rate, dizziness, shaking, racing thoughts, nausea, sweating, difficulty concentrating, rapid breathing and tensed muscles. These feelings are a normal response to danger and having one or more of these feelings does not make you a freak. Everyone will experience the fight-flight-freeze response at times to varying degrees.

Oftentimes, people who survive a traumatic event find themselves second-guessing their response to the trauma, even blaming themselves for what happened. What I try to remind people who have survived something horrible is that something bad happened to them, that does not make you bad. You are not the event that happened to you. You are a survivor, a warrior. It is not uncommon for the body to remember what happened and re-engage the fight-fight-freeze response when you encounter similar situations or reminders of the event; this is normal but the response can dissipate over time.

Working through a traumatic event can take time but by practicing coping skills like deep breathing and other relaxation techniques, the body can learn to adapt to triggers. Working with a therapist or counselor can help you navigate the feelings and emotions you are enduring because of the trauma. A therapist or counselor can help you develop coping skills that you can employ when facing reminders of the event you endured. If you have suffered a traumatic event and are finding difficulty navigating the feelings associated with it, please reach out to someone who can help. You do not have to suffer in silence. You do not have to try to recover from what happened on your own. There are people who can help you through this. There are people who care.