With winter now upon us in the Northern Hemisphere, there are days when it’s fireplace weather. When it’s cold, wet and nasty outside, I find there’s few things more comforting than a warm fire on the inside.
Although I enjoy the fires, there are times when it brings me into direct contact with my nemesis of the smoke alarms. Anytime a little smoke goes the wrong direction, it sets off all the alarms.
The way the smoke alarm system works is that when one goes off, they all go off. It creates a cacophony of sound and irritation. The fire is nice, the alarm going off isn’t. The warm, cozy atmosphere I was enjoying is shattered by the blasted alarms.
Although I don’t like the alarm system, it works.
In a similar way, when you are dealing with a trauma, such as an Affair Trauma, your alarm system goes off as well. Like the smoke alarm, when one trauma lights up your brain and emotions, all your previous traumas light up as well.
In a flash you re-experience all the emotion and turmoil of your previous traumas plus a new one as well. Your body’s alarm system sees danger ahead and it sounds the trauma alarm.
Although you may consider your previous trauma episodes resolved, all it takes is a new one and it’s turned on again. Since all traumas are connected, one can light up all the others.
When those traumas light up, whatever peace of mind you had previously is gone. Your ability to calm yourself is gone as well.
Your body and mind suddenly freeze up. When your alarm system is turned on, you may even find yourself facing hyper-arousal of strong sensations.
That hyper-arousal is part of the alarm system being turned on. At some levels your body is reliving past events, even when your mind tells you that the danger is passed. In the world of emotions, danger is either turned on or off, there is no past, present or future.
This means that when the system is switched on, all your past traumas, current trauma and fears of future trauma go off at the same time. The alarm sounds and your body reacts.
Trauma has ways of sticking to you, even years later. I dealt with many of these symptoms and ways of handling them in the January report on Trauma Bonds.
I also address ways of moving past trauma in the video on Overcoming Affair Trauma. There are ways of turning off your reactions and resetting your emotions.
The video guides you through ways of doing that, so that you don’t have to jump at the sound of the alarm. You can start overcoming your trauma with just a few clicks.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
