Trauma shock is any sudden, terrible experience that disrupts your well-being and overwhelms you. A traumatic experience can shock your system, causing you to go into a state of dissociation, where your body and mind feel disconnected and nothing feels real.1
Your brain resorts to this adaptive defense mechanism when trying to cope with stressful or overwhelming events that it cannot prevent or escape.2 Shock helps reduce your awareness of your physical or emotional pain by dulling your senses, making you numb, and reducing your conscious cognizance of the event.
At a Glance
After a trauma, it’s common for people to experience overwhelming physical and emotional reactions. This helps blunt your awareness of the pain but can also come with distressing symptoms like chills, shakiness, changes in blood pressure, rapid breathing, fear, and panic. In this article, we’ll explore some symptoms people often experience and what can cause them. We’ll also cover some coping strategies to help you regain your equilibrium.
Symptoms of Traumatic Shock
Trauma can cause a wide range of physical and emotional symptoms. However, every individual reacts to it differently.
Physical Symptoms
These are some of the physical symptoms that may accompany traumatic shock:3
- Chills
- Dizziness
- Shakiness
- Lightheadedness
- Unconsciousness
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Stomach pain
- Rapid heartbeat
- Headache
- Muscle tension
- Elevated blood pressure
- Rapid, shallow breathing
Emotional Symptoms
These are some of the emotional symptoms that may accompany traumatic shock:3
- Fear
- Panic
- Denial
- Anxiety
- Anger
- Irritability
- Helplessness
- Brain fog
- Confusion
- Disorientation
- Numbness
- Withdrawal
- Emotional outbursts
- Inability to concentrate
- Difficulty making decisions
- Decreased awareness of surroundings
- A feeling of being unsafe
The dissociative state typically lasts for a short time, such as a few minutes or hours; however, in some cases of repeated or prolonged trauma, it can persist for a much longer period of time.4
Afterward, it’s not uncommon for the person to be preoccupied with the event, forget it entirely, or have flashbacks or nightmares of it.5
What Causes Traumatic Shock?
While anything that significantly disrupts your emotional equilibrium can be considered a traumatic event, these are some examples of events that can cause traumatic shock:6
- Abandonment
- Abuse
- Accident
- Argument
- Bankruptcy
- Breakup
- Bullying
- Crime
- Death
- Divorce
- Domestic abuse
- Financial crisis
- Illness
- Imprisonment
- Infidelity
- Injury
- Job loss
- Life-threatening event
- Natural disaster
- Racism7
- Sexual abuse or assault
- Terrorism
- Violence
- War
- Witnessing a traumatic incident that happens to someone else
Types of Traumatic Shock
Traumatic shock can be categorized into different types, depending on how it affects the brain and body.
Dissociative Shock
Traumatic events can sometimes cause a person to go into shock and disconnect from either themselves or the people around them. People who experience dissociative shock may feel disconnected from reality, suffer memory loss, or develop dissociative disorders.8
Medical Trauma
Certain physical injuries or illnesses can be traumatic for the body and cause the person to go into a state of shock. These are the different types of shock, medically speaking:9
- Hypovolemic shock is marked by severe blood and fluid loss, which can make it difficult for the heart to pump blood and in turn, cause vital organs to stop functioning.
- Distributive shock is characterized by abnormalities in the blood vessels that distribute blood around the body, which can lead to low blood pressure.9
- Cardiogenic shock, often caused by a heart attack, occurs when the heart isn’t able to pump blood to the rest of the body.10 It is also known as cardiac shock.
- Neurogenic shock is caused by spinal cord injuries that can damage the nervous system and interfere with blood flow.
While these types of shock are medical conditions, they can also affect us emotionally and vice versa because the body and mind are interlinked.
For instance, someone who has been shot at or been in a car accident may have severe blood loss and go into hypovolemic shock; however, they may also sustain severe emotional trauma. Similarly, someone who receives devastating news or experiences a trauma may have a heart attack and go into cardiac shock.
These conditions are medical emergencies that can be life-threatening and need to be treated right away. If someone has sustained a medical injury, call 911 immediately.
Diagnosing Traumatic Shock
If you or a loved one have experienced an emotional trauma and are struggling to cope with it, it’s important to seek help from a healthcare professional, ideally someone who specializes in treating trauma.
The healthcare professional will assess your condition and symptoms, perform any tests or exams required, diagnose your condition and its severity, refer you to a specialist if needed, and chart out a treatment plan for you.
Depending on your symptoms and the amount of time it has been since the traumatic event, you may be diagnosed with:
- Acute stress disorder (ASD): ASD is a mental health condition that can occur in the first month after a traumatic event.11
- Post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD): PTSD is a mental health condition where the symptoms of trauma persist for months after the traumatic event.12
- Dissociative disorders: These are a group of disorders characterized by a feeling of dissociated from reality.9
How Is Emotional Trauma Treated?
The emotional effects of trauma are best treated by healthcare providers who specialize in trauma-informed care, which takes a different approach from other types of mental healthcare. Trauma-informed care recognizes the need for healthcare providers to understand the person’s life experiences to deliver effective care.13
Treatment for emotional trauma may involve:14
- Medication to alleviate symptoms
- Trauma-focused therapy to help you process the painful events and develop coping strategies
Depending on the circumstances, treatment may be administered on an inpatient, outpatient, or partial hospitalization basis.14