Trauma Response

I have written a bit about the trauma that has shaped my life. Some thing I have learned from my personal trauma is that there are a variety of different responses to trauma. Part of this essay is to help myself identify the difference in  the types of responses to trauma I have personally had in an attempt to lay some of the past trauma to sleep, or in other terms deactivate some triggers created by past trauma.

Active/Passive Response

The two extremes of action based response to trauma are Active and Passive. Active Responses can also be aggressive responses and Passive meaning non-active responses. This can also be defined as Aggressive, Active responses as being male with the Passive, Non-Active responses being female if you follow the standard binary thinking of male and female. In my personal life I have found that drawing a "line" on when you will use each type of response to be the best course. By defining when and where you will apply each type of response you will save the energy from an active response for areas that can better benefit from it.

Active Response

I have placed the active response first as it seems to be my default response to trauma. An active response is any time you take action as a response to trauma. There are some limitations on the level or type of action you can take placed on you by the law of the land. For example one form of active response is being aggressive. An aggressive response can be summed up as someone slaps you so you slap them back. However while slapping the person would bring immediate gratification if we were talking about shooting the law would have a negative response to your action. The same if someone caused a situation where you broke a bone; it would be better to use the court system to receive satisfaction than to break the offending parties bone in return.

Passive Response

I am not as familar with passive responses and it will probably so in this section. Similar to the aggressive response, passive response can be summed up as someone slaps you and you do not take direct action back. If you have ever known a person who just stops showing up or stops responding to you after an infraction then you have known some one who more than likely uses Passive Responses to indiscretions.

Elemental Response

Any person who has done any reading on paganism, witchcraft, wicca, etc. is aware of the elements. The Elements can also be seen in an individual's response to trauma.

Air

Just as Air is primarily concerned with the intellect in everything else, in trauma response it is when you use your mind or intelligence to respond to a trauma. This response can be positive in understanding that someone did not intentionally mean to harm you or it can be negative in using logic to justify a harmful act. 

Fire

Wonderfully passionate Fire willing to take the stage. Here is where I find the desire to fight coming from. Fire also likes to consume totally, so when I become obbessed, typically it is an over abundance of fire or passion to blame.

Water

Water; when emotions rule the response or we dare to do something. This is where I find the strength to claim the wrong as wrong in the face of those saying it is normal or to be expected. When a person finds it in them to rally to report a wrong that they have experienced, but find shameful to experience this is the power of water. Water is also a good one for predicting that someone is planning to hurt you intentionally or not.

Earth

Earth is all about structure. How many times has anyone told another person to "pound sand" meaning go away via walking/running/etc. during a heated or possibly heated discussion? More earth responses could be trying to control the situation, being inflexible, resentful, or hyper critical. Some responses can be harmful or helpful to a situation; it all depends on the situation. Controlling and being inflexible about your safety is a rather good thing for the most part, until it isn't.