Why Is It So Hard to Move Past Traumatic Experiences?

Traumatic experiences disrupt our expectations of the world. From a young age, we learn to view the world in terms of absolutes: right or wrong, good or bad, meant to be or not meant to be. If you do the right thing, you are rewarded. If you do the wrong thing, you get punished. Viewing the world in this way makes life seem simple. Easy. Safe. Even if your childhood was less than perfect, most people have the general perception that this is how the world “should” be. This common view of the world is referred to as the “just world belief¹.”

Sooner or later, our life experiences begin to violate this belief. We study hard and still fail the test. We are faithful and attentive, yet our partner still loses interest and moves on to someone new. We follow the safety protocol and still get hurt. If our life experiences only diverge from our expectations a small or moderate amount on occasion, we can typically integrate that into our existing framework of beliefs. This process of integration results in a continually evolving and increasingly complex view of the world over time.

However, if our life experiences violate our expectations to an extreme degree, integration becomes a much greater challenge. When this happens, we experience it as psychologically traumatic. Traumatic experiences can include events such as the unexpected death or serious injury of someone close to you, near-death experiences, or experiencing or witnessing physical or sexual violence. Traumatic life events violate our expectations about how things “should” be and leave our minds scrambling to adjust.

What Happens After a Traumatic Experience

After a traumatic experience, the almost universal human response is a set of symptoms that happen as a result of our attempts to integrate the traumatic experience into our pre-existing worldview. Our mind bombards our waking and sleeping hours with replays of or thoughts about what happened. We may try to avoid thinking or talking about what happened or avoid situations and people who remind us of what happened. As we process the traumatic event, we may look for someone or something to blame (including ourselves) or even question our entire beliefs system. As a result of these experiences and thoughts, it is not uncommon to struggle with feeling unsafe and have difficulty trusting other people or the world. After a trauma, people often feel edgy, anxious, and on high alert to potential dangers.

For many people, these symptoms decrease over time². The traumatic experience becomes a bad memory that is a part of their past. However, for some, the symptoms continue for months, years, or even decades. People whose posttraumatic stress symptoms do not remit on their own and continue to interfere with their life long after the traumatic experience occurred may be experiencing a psychological disorder known as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Why Do Some People Develop PTSD While Others Don’t?

Researchers hypothesize that people who are very good at separating themselves from trauma-related thoughts and reminders may be at particular risk of developing PTSD^3,4,5. Paradoxically, the behaviors that may have allowed the person to survive horrific experiences is likely the one that keeps them stuck long after the danger has passed.

It is human nature to avoid pain. If you touch a hot stove and get burned, you learn to avoid touching hot stoves. In the world outside of our skin, avoiding painful things is adaptive and increases the likelihood we will survive. Unfortunately, the internal, emotional world works differently than the outside world. Avoidance of painful thoughts and emotions often results in those same thoughts and emotions increasing, rather than decreasing in intensity and frequency. Repeated traumatic experiences and the severity of the traumatic experience can also influence the probability and severity of PTSD³. For more information about how emotions work, see my posts here and here.

How Can I Recover From PTSD?

While some people find taking medicine reduces their symptoms enough that they can stop avoiding trauma-related thoughts, feelings and experiences, research suggests trauma-focused psychotherapy is the most effective treatment for PTSD⁶. The most effective trauma-focused psychotherapies focus on processing the memory of the traumatic experience, the changes in view of yourself, others, and the world in response to the traumatic experience, or a both⁷. Processing can also be done through talking or guided writing about traumatic experiences.

Curious About Trauma-focused Treatment?

If you would like to learn more or are ready to take the next step toward recovery from trauma, I would be happy to meet to discuss your symptoms and find the right path forward for you.

If you would like to learn more about me or are considering therapy, it may also be helpful to learn more about me, my credentials, the types of individual therapy and couple therapy I offer, or read my FAQs. To request a free consultation or schedule your first session, click here.

Please note that the information provided in this blog post is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional therapy or mental health treatment.

Works Cited

1. APA Dictionary of Psychology. Just-world hypothesis. American Psychological Association.
2. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5-TR. 5th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing; 2022.
3. Tortella-Feliu M, Fullana MA, Pérez-Vigil A, Torres X, Chamorro J, Littarelli SA, Solanes A, et al. Risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder: An umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2019;107:154-165. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.09.013.
4. Seligowski AV, Lee DJ, Bardeen JR, Orcutt HK. Emotion regulation and posttraumatic stress symptoms: A meta-analysis. Cogn Behav Ther. 2015;44(2):87-102. doi:10.1080/16506073.2014.980753.
5. Miethe S, Wigger J, Wartemann A, et al. Posttraumatic stress symptoms and its association with rumination, thought suppression and experiential avoidance: A systematic review and meta-analysis. J Psychopathol Behav Assess. 2023;45:480–495. doi:10.1007/s10862-023-10022-2.
6. Lee DJ, Schnitzlein CW, Wolf JP, Vythilingam M, Rasmusson AM, Hoge CW. Psychotherapy versus pharmacotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder: Systematic review and meta-analyses to determine first-line treatments. Depress Anxiety. 2016;33(6):472-488. doi:10.1002/da.22511.
7. Jericho B, Luo A, Berle D. Trauma-focused psychotherapies for post-traumatic stress disorder: A systematic review and network meta-analysis. Acta Psychiatr Scand. 2022;145(2):132-155. doi:10.1111/acps.13366.