A critical incident or traumatic event is any event that overwhelms a person’s “normal coping mechanisms” such as the sudden loss of a loved one, loss of a job, an accident that causes serious injury or death, a divorce, life threatening illness or diagnosis. Other events that have the same affect are natural disasters or terrorist attacks.   All of these events are powerful, often abrupt, can be unexpected, sometimes life threatening and fall outside the range of that person’s normal experiences.  The event can, and often, does impact a person so severely that they go into shock and denial and are unable to rationalize or make sense of what happened; unable to process it or “file” the event away mentally or emotionally. Such incidents cause us to experience reactions that affect us mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and behaviorally.  Most of the time we have no idea how these events affect us or how we are feeling. We just know that we don’t feel “right.” Such stress reactions can result in us experiencing what is known as Psychological Trauma.

In psychology, the word “psyche” refers to the human mind, both the conscious and unconscious parts. The basic meaning of the Greek word for psyche is “life” in the sense of “breath.” Other meanings include our spirit, soul, ghost, and ultimately “self” in the sense of “conscious personality.” The word trauma is a Greek word meaning “a wound.”  So, the term Psychological Trauma essentially means wounded soul, wounded self, wounded spirit, at both conscious and/or unconscious levels.  Psychological trauma can be caused by one major incident or by the accumulative effects of several events which are compounded experiences such as repeated traumatic situations, repeated abuse, or recurring illnesses. When we are unable to cope with these events using our normal coping mechanisms, we become traumatized.

Each of us react to stress differently.  Some of us panic, and others calmly deal with the situation. Both of these reactions are normal.  The aspects of an event which makes it critical to one person but not to another are varied. A persons’ previous life experiences, their training, their personality or even survival of a previous event, which was very similar to the current one, can help someone face similar critical events with a more hopeful and positive outlook. An untrained person, a person who’s never experienced such an event before, or a person who has experienced one but didn’t recover from it well, will naturally not cope as well the next time they experience something of a similar nature. Our own history, our testimony and life experiences dictate how we will react or respond to the next similar situation. Even different beliefs and cultures predict how people will react to certain situations.

The important thing to understand is that we are all uniquely wired to respond to such events in certain ways that, at times, we just don’t understand or even recognize.  The fight, flight or freeze reactions are natural responses that we have no control over. They happen within seconds, controlled by our sympathetic nervous systems.  This is often followed by extreme ranges of emotion such as uncontrollable sobbing to outbursts of anger which can go on for days, weeks and months. Over the years, I’ve learned to allow myself to express whatever I felt in that moment. If I needed to cry, then I’d cry. If I wanted to scream and punch my pillows, I did that. If I wanted to be quiet and solitary it was ok.  If I wanted to laugh out loud, that was fine.  I didn’t stop my emotions because I knew that wasn’t going to help.

Emotions are normal reactions to abnormal events; however, they do change us in many ways.  We often struggle and fight to get back to what life was like before the abnormal event that impacts us. We want life to be normal again, but this is now our ‘new normal’ and it takes some getting used to. The loss of life as we once knew it brings changes that we may or may not like. It isn’t always a bad thing. 

My reaction toward the diagnosis of cancer in my body was fueled by fear. In spite of doing everything I knew to do through prayer and intercession to save my Mum, she had died anyway, and my mind still held very vivid images of how awful it had been for her.  I truly did believe she’d he healed of cancer because I fasted and prayed, really hard!  I had the whole scenario planned out in my mind and really did believe that my plan was so good that God would agree to it!  Don’t we all do that at one time or another? Yet we are shocked when He doesn’t do things our way. 

Added trauma can also impact a current reaction to difficult situations.  When I was diagnosed with cancer myself in December of 2012, I had just returned home from my deployment with Foursquare Disaster Relief ministries to provide emotional and spiritual care to the survivors of Hurricane Sandy in Staten Island, New Jersey.  The stories I heard, the sights I saw, smells I smelled and overwhelming experiences I faced were all incredibly sad.  After working there for seven days I was emotionally tired and overwhelmed with fatigue and stress.  This was my first deployment with a disaster relief team,  and nothing could have prepared me for what I saw and heard.  I’d never witnessed such devastation or heard such tragic stories. Even my years as a police officer in England didn’t prepare me for what I’d experience during that 7-day deployment.

Here are just a few of the stories I heard from the people I cared for, prayed with, loved on and cried with.

“I live just down the road from my sister, and I called her cell to tell her to get out of the house because the flood waters rose so fast.  She told me it was too late. The water was already too deep, and she had nowhere to go. She was terrified.  I could hear the fear in her voice. So, I told her to hang on, get to the roof if she could and we’d get to her as soon as possible. When the water had gone down, we went to rescue her but found her body. She had drowned. She was only 59. She had tried to get out because I could see where she had tried to punch a hole in the living room ceiling to climb into the attic…”

“I was clinging to my roof trying to escape the floods when I saw my sister-in-law’s body floating past me, face down and tied to a heavy coffee table. Her husband tied her to the coffee table thinking it would save her.”

“I was calling to my three dogs and two cats, trying to get them upstairs to higher ground because the water started coming under the front door. They’re all I had left. They were my babies. There was a loud crash as water burst through my front windows, smashing them. It must have been a big wave or something but I’m nowhere near the beach so I couldn’t tell. I heard one of my cats screeching and when I saw her, I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do because I couldn’t get to her. Water rushed in so fast and was so deep. The last time I saw her, she was clawing at the window frame, desperately trying to cling on to it to save herself. Then the water sucked everything out of my house, taking her with it. It happened so fast. I don’t know where my other cat is. I found the bodies of two of my dogs. One was trapped under my couch and had been crushed. I only have one dog left now.”

“My dog and I were trapped in my car for hours. We only had about five inches of air left at the top of the car and had to keep our heads above water the whole time, until the tide went out. It took about 5 hours before it was low enough to get out.  It was exhausting. I thought we were going to die but I am so thankful to be alive.”

“I am wheelchair bound. My phone stopped working so I couldn’t call out to ask for help and I have no family to help me. My neighbors had already evacuated. I stayed because I thought I was going to be safe, so I wasn’t ready for the flood. The water was getting too close to my house and was rising so fast that I knew I had to get out. I didn’t grab anything, I had no time, so I got outside of the house as fast as I could and tried to wheel myself up the hill away from the water, but I was too weak. I yelled and yelled for help, but I couldn’t see anyone. It was cold and windy and all I had on was my underwear. Thank God, someone heard me shouting and saw me. They got me in to their car and took me to the shelter. I thought I was a gonner!”

Storms can cause unspeakable damage at times. Hurricane Sandy was no exception. It totally changed the face of the east coast in many areas. Life is like that though, isn’t it? A storm comes and totally changes us. As painful and traumatic as they can be, storms in our lives are sometimes survivable and, with the right help and support, we do rise again from the flood waters that try to drown us.

What storms are crashing into your life right now?  How do you manage those tough times so that you don’t drown under the weight of the floods of emotions.  This is an excerpt from my book, “What To Do When Life Sucks” which is available on Amazon in several nations.  If this has been helpful to you and you’d like to read more, get your copy today!