Avoidance behaviour

Avoidance behaviour means avoiding any place, person or thing that may remind you of the traumatic event. You may have experienced a flashback and traumatic event recollection in a particular place and you start avoiding this place or anything that could even slightly remind you of it. And your world gets narrower and narrower. You often don’t admit, even to yourself, that you are avoiding the particular person or place and you make excuses or elaborate arrangements to avoid encountering the site of traumatic event – place, person or activity such as driving.

Emotional numbness

You may feel as though a part of you has been removed or has died, you may feel hollow or void. You may experience of feeling shut down. This feeling then leads to inability to connect with the rest of the world through feelings. You may find yourself unable to laugh, feel happy or cry. You may even find your ability to love has been affected and if you are a parent, this can be a very frightening experience. Avoidance behaviour and emotional numbness are often used by the traumatic event survivor as a way to prevent further pain. And feelings such as self-blame or a particularly horrible detail which you are keeping secret only increases the pressure to preserve the numbness as it feels safer that way. But the end result will be counterproductive and you may end up isolated and prevented from moving on with your life.

Intimacy problems

The feelings often described by people with post traumatic stress disorder is that they feel as if they are watching things from behind a glass window or even as if they are observing themselves from outside their body. This feeling of disconnection from other people can make you very lonely, you withdraw from other peoples company, speak very little and you may get angry as other people put pressure on you and expect you to get over it. Your ability to deal with intimacy and physical contact is affected too. You may avoid hugs and kisses or any form of expressing affection. This is probably because you are trying to keep yourself together and can’t respond to unexpected demands. If your guard is lowered, for example when falling asleep or during sex, this may provoke sudden panic. This is because reverting to your former ways of feeling might also get you closer to the traumatic feeling and the possibility of having to go through it all again.

Comfort eating or substance and alcohol abuse

As a result of a traumatic event, you may use alcohol or drugs to escape or block out the painful thoughts and memories and recollections of the event in order to obtain a temporary respite. You may dread falling asleep and letting your guard down as this brings back the painful recollections. When your sleep is disturbed for a long enough period of time, the temptation to take a pill or use alcohol to enhance sleep is very strong.

Some people use comfort food as a way of escaping painful memories. Just the action of filling themselves with food can alleviate the empty feeling inside. With this sort of behaviour you may get a temporary relief, however it can have a rebound effect. In other words, it doesn’t solve the problem and can create a new one.