Is Trauma holding you back from Freedom?

Trauma and decision making

According to the American Psychological Association, trauma is an emotional or psychological response to a deeply distressing or life-threatening event that overwhelms your ability to cope. Trauma can leave us feeling vulnerable, confused, insecure and scared. Our mental freedom to make decisions with psychological clarity can be impaired because of trauma.

The agreements we make because of psychological distress sometimes feel like a strong hug posing to be protective, but it is ultimately destructive. Decisions and conclusions about people, places, and relationships seem to make sense given what we’ve been through. After all, we've lived this before, so we know what to expect, but that's not always true. Trauma dysregulates the nervous system, causing hypervigilance and fatigue. Prefrontal cortex activity is reduced, and the brain focuses on survival, causing rational thinking and emotional regulation to take a back seat. You're basically working with a baseline that's working against your freedom of choice.

There are situations where I can look back and recognize that I made decisions based on experiences that dragged me through the mud. Those decisions most times created so much tension in my body as I was revisiting the trauma every time I made fear-based decisions. It is okay to look back at experiences and make decisions, but it's only helpful if your conclusion is rational and treading towards growth.

There needs to be a disconnect between the present you and the traumatic event. You may still be dealing with the aftermath, but you are not there anymore. You have to choose to move on, to crave freedom. It's a choice, and it's okay to have to choose over and over again until you get to a place where you can trust yourself to make decisions for your best interest. Jeremiah 29:11 helped me choose over and over again until I got to a safe space to make decisions freely. It says, “ For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Keep pressing towards choosing freedom.

Sources

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Trauma. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/trauma

The Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV)