Survival Scars Are Not Always Visible

When I first started this journey into mental health, I never expected to learn so much about myself. I have spent close to 40 years battling depression, bullying, anxiety and so much more. I always knew mental health impacted physical health and vice versa. But I never imagined that living with trauma, abuse, disorders, and going for so long without getting help can impact my life. Emotional trauma effects your brain in a way that you don’t realize until it is almost too late.

PTSD

Emotional trauma can come from anywhere. Most find PTSD the relation of emotional trauma. Finding yourself surviving a natural disaster, a car crash, wartime, as well as those that survive physical abuse. The sudden impact of a life event that they survive leaves scars that are not visible. Our minds tend to hold onto images that can activate other senses bringing in a fuller body reflection of the event. Smells, touches, and sounds can pull in the fear and anxiety once felt from the initial event.  

Emotional

But emotional trauma is not just PTSD. Emotional trauma is also one that someone experiences over a longer period of time. If someone lives through months and years of emotional abuse from a friend or family member, that is also emotional trauma. This has just a defining effect on the person as does physical abuse and PTSD. Especially the longer that person endures the abuse. And when it comes to emotional abuse, it is also harder to define and harder to prove.

Scars on the brain

Lasting emotional trauma influences the brain in a physical nature, ultimately causing brain damage. You see, your brain is the central system to your body, including your emotions and survival instincts. When you are suffering through emotional trauma for a longer period, your brain begins to over stimulate to almost the point of uncontrollable fear and anxiety. This results in other areas of your brain, especially the areas that control your memories to shrink. Ever wonder why after going through an especially hard time in your life, you suddenly start to forget things of the past?

Lasting effect

 Think about those that suffer from abuse received by spouses or parents. Those individuals tend to live through the abuse for years. Some up to 20+ years. Those people have been trying to survive, live a life as best as they can until they can find a way to leave the abuser. Those people are also probably finding out that their minds were not as strong as they once were. Like I said, I have been through so much in my life that almost 40 years of it was battling against something. For several years as a child, I was constantly teased and bullied. Most of my life was full of depression. And it wasn’t until recently when I realized I couldn’t remember things like I used to, that I took notice.

Invisible Scars

I have said before that mental health and physical health go hand in hand. When you think of the two, you probably think of those that go through so much anxiety in their life that they have a heart attack. Or maybe someone receiving news they have cancer, and they develop depression. Those are not the only ways. Living through emotional abuse, trauma, and mental health disorders that go undiagnosed and untreated, lead to physical damage within our bodies. Just because you cannot see the scars someone is living with; doesn’t mean they are not just as damaging.

Enjoy this video.

With great warmth,