Research: Keeping your feelings to yourself after trauma

[Trebuchet]

I was reading Science Daily and found an interesting article titled "It's Okay To Keep Those Feelings Inside, New Study Suggests." Actually, the study was published in 2008, so it isn't new anymore, but hey, it's new to me.

The researchers investigated whether it really is important for everyone to talk about their feelings after a collective trauma, such as a school shooting. They only studied people who were did not have a direct loss of a friend or family member, so it doesn't say anything about people who had a personal loss.

They concluded that while some people do want to talk out their feelings, some don't, and those people were better off emotionally after a delay. This is a correlation, not necessarily a cause, so it isn't evidence that talking out such feelings is itself bad.

Many people on this forum have said that they've been criticized for wanting to keep their feelings to themselves after a trauma. Some have been called cold or callous, others have been told their quiet reactions were unhealthy, or that they weren't in touch with their feelings. This is only one article, but I think it indicates that such criticism is potentially very wrong.

 

[Cogwulf]

It's just the old stereotyping that says if you don't talk about your feelings then there must be something wrong with you. The introduction says it all really "popular notions about what is normal or healthy"
It would be hard to make a conclusion about why the people who didn't talk were better off without knowing about the personalities of the people involved and how they felt just after the incident. The people who chose not to talk may just have been less affected by it initially, or it may be that people who don't talk are more likely to be less emotional about the situation.

 

[crippli]

Sounds plausible to me. If you live in a corrupted environment where the leaders are inducing traumatic experiences on people around you. You will be emotionally more stable and functional if you pretend it's all fine. Raising against injustice is difficult.

So I'm not sure I agree that it's 'keeping the feelings to yourself'. It's more a defense mechanism to pretend it's fine to spare you from more suffering.


Or it could be that the master plan for revenge isn't fully grown.

 

[Dimensional Transition]

I think it just depends on the person. For some people it might feel relieving to talk about their feelings, and for others it might feel better to keep their feelings to themselves.
Personally I really find it comforting to talk about my feelings and listen to other people's problems(if they're friends that is).

 

[XanMan]

I experienced trauma as a child so I think about this often. I'm also a member of a group of individuals like myself that have suffered extreme childhood trauma, we meet weekly. I've been a member of this group for years and have seen first hand what trauma does to people.

Talking about the pain is hard, but it's the only way out, in my experience. All breakthroughs I've witnessed in myself and others has been as a result of opening up and talking about it.

I think the modern world has cut us off from each other. We live in an egotistical society, with clear borders that separate you from me, us from them.

I believe we are all deeply connected, and the problem begins when I keep "my" feelings to "my"self. Trauma is like an extremely large input to a circuit. No single component in the circuit can handle the large input by itself, and it's futile to try. The solution, is to split the large input amongst many components in the circuit, such as to reduce the strain on any one individual component. Our minds work the same way. It's a fundamental part of nature.

 

[Trebuchet]

Just to clarify, I do not advocate keeping emotions inside when talking would help. Of course that wouldn't be a good idea, and it isn't what the study concluded. Nor was the article addressing all types of trauma.

I posted this because I thought it was interesting, and showed that different responses can be right for different situations. This forum has a lot of people who don't necessarily follow all the "rules."

When trauma happens, people need to find their own best way through it. Maybe that is with a therapist or group, or through meditation. To reiterate what I said before, the study found a correlation, not a causal relationship. They did not say keeping quiet produced better outcomes.

 

[Solitaire U.]

Personally, I enjoy describing to anyone willing to listen how I experienced 'trauma' "...and lived to tell about it."

Though I have reason to believe my 'trauma threshold' is exponentially higher than the norm...

 

[Solitaire U.]

I experienced trauma as a child so I think about this often. I'm also a member of a group of individuals like myself that have suffered extreme childhood trauma, we meet weekly. I've been a member of this group for years and have seen first hand what trauma does to people.

All due respect, but I'm compelled to say that I've also seen some rather peculiar delusions develop within groups such as you described.

 

[Jennywocky]

They concluded that while some people do want to talk out their feelings, some don't, and those people were better off emotionally after a delay. This is a correlation, not necessarily a cause, so it isn't evidence that talking out such feelings is itself bad.

Many people on this forum have said that they've been criticized for wanting to keep their feelings to themselves after a trauma. Some have been called cold or callous, others have been told their quiet reactions were unhealthy, or that they weren't in touch with their feelings. This is only one article, but I think it indicates that such criticism is potentially very wrong.

I'm typically a case-by-case basis; but then again, I see people as having distinct personality preferences from a very young age (even birth), and so what is natural for one might not be natural for another.

Forcing some people to be open about painful thoughts and feelings actually is counter-productive. Out of my three kids, I have one who actively analyzes his feelings, one who can't keep his feelings in (his issue is more just trying not to emotionally ralph all over everyone in the area when he's upset about something), and one who cannot discuss her feelings of fear and hurt directly (when she went into therapy for a year, we had to get her a play therapist because a regular therapist was too direct to be any good for her).

And I would say only extremes of those behaviors are unhealthy, not the behaviors themselves; it's just how we all cope differently.

I personally prefer to be able to talk to people directly (if discretely) about feelings, so I have trouble getting close to the truly stoic types; but it's not always a sign of suppression and/or unhealth for someone to keep stuff in. If it's unhealthy, it'll eventually leak out in other ways because it won't have been dealt with. Forcing someone to speak when they feel too vulnerable is a type of violation, in my perspective.

 

[Cogwulf]

The problem with any attempt to discern the best way to treat someone for trauma, is working out whether the person is genuinely overcoming their problems, or just getting better at hiding them.

 

[socialexpat]

Sounds plausible to me. If you live in a corrupted environment where the leaders are inducing traumatic experiences on people around you. You will be emotionally more stable and functional if you pretend it's all fine. Raising against injustice is difficult.

So I'm not sure I agree that it's 'keeping the feelings to yourself'. It's more a defense mechanism to pretend it's fine to spare you from more suffering.


Or it could be that the master plan for revenge isn't fully grown.

Yes, untill one snaps and starts to go on his / her spree because coping with the traumatic experience ceased to exist in one's mind and got replaced with revenge and vengance.. Lethal combination none the less.
Read the book about Andrej Chikatilo, how he got traumatized during events in his youth .. During the Russian poverty and infamine, Chikatilo's relative got killed and eaten (cannibalism) .. By certain members of the controlling authority at that time.. It left Chikatilo in deep anger and he must have felt powerless too, maybe struck with impression.
During the continuation of his life and marriage he got often huffed at and criticised by his wife, which transformated a traumatised gentle human (without psychological aftercare) into a predator for weak and defenseless children.
Odd that he went for the younger ones since his youth must have been seriously twisted.. He was said to suffer impotency but that may have been due to his lingering trauma (i think, not sure).

Richard Ramirez was impressed too when his relative killed his own wife in front of the eyes of Richard Ramirez, you could say that it left a seed in Ramirez his youth .. Developing Ramirez himself into a sadistic killer along with other trauma's he suffered during his life all be it trauma's he inflicted to himself to get his kicks and which was probably a perpetuation to more killings of the same size.

So maybe it is good to go and see someone about a possible trauma.. It seems logic to me that traumatized persons are somehow angry or feel treated injust and have to find a way to let it go .. Not speaking about it is also a possibility but it can be difficult to maintain the discipline of behaving non (verbally) violent towards the victimizer or difficult to maintain control in a social enviroment when one has had a bad experience.
A good example is the hazing technique and how victims of hazing all show the same symptoms.
People react often like animals .. The only diffirence we have is that we are able to use our brain in a more complex way than animals .. But negative experiences are the same between humans and animals .. I wonder at that bit how complex they both are in that bit of psychology.