MANIFESTATIONS OF TRAUMA

Trauma refers to an emotional response to a terrible event. These events may be physical or psychological for example, witnessing the death of a loved one, natural disasters, emotional abuse,  war and among others. These events are terrible stressful, frightening, distressing and difficult to cope with. These affect a person's behavioral relations, learning capabilities, comprehension, lower academic performance and perception of things that hinder growth and development.  Trauma can affect anyone of any age, race, social class and anywhere because these terrible events can happen in all those. 

Trauma can be manifested in the following ways in school going learners; paranoia, isolation, hostile, unreasonable fears, forgetfulness, apathy and lack of effort, perfectionist tendencies and outbursts. 

According to Better Health Channel, paranoia refers to the irrational and persistent feeling that people are out to get a person or that a person is subject of persistent, intrusive attention by others. This kind of feeling normally makes it difficult for a person to concentrate while in a place with a lot of people or thinking that someone is following them. Many counselors have come to accept that trauma does not cause paranoia but instead catalyzes it (Sana counselors). This means that a person who is traumatized has high feelings that the terrible event can repeat itself.  

Another manifestation of trauma in learners is isolation. Isolation refers to the situation being in a place and choosing a separate place to be alone. Isolation differs from loneliness. A learner with so many others in a school may experience the urge to be alone not necessarily because they are feeling out of place but preoccupations of the terrible event. Continuous isolation may result into depression which implies that a solution to continuous isolations be found early. 

A traumatized learner may develop continuous urge to defend themselves from the possible reoccurrence of the terrible event. This makes them develop a defense mechanism that in their world protects them from the same situation. They become hostile in order to keep people way from them. The learner develops a great urge to control their surroundings. For example a learner who was sexually abused may become hostile towards anyone that tries to put them in the same situation or even hostile to anyone that is related to the abuser. 

There was always this young girl in her early twenties in one of my classes who always had fears of anything that she presumed to be out of her capabilities. I as a teacher always observed that she had a great capability in reasoning but could not do it because she feared to reason. I tried to get close to her to help her see what I saw in her. She obviously refused to even have a one on one with me because she felt she was not worthy until I discovered what could make her comfortable (text messages). In our interactions, I discovered that she was always put down by the members of her family because they believed she could not do anything perfectly as they expected. I journeyed with her as any good teacher would and by the time she finished her classes she was the best debater. She always had fear of showing her ignorance and so never thought of her capability. 

Forgetting is the apparent loss of information already encoded and stored in an individual's short or long term memory. It is usually considered normal to forget a thing or two but becomes a concern if one forgets the same thing over repeated times in a given period of time. This kind of forgetfulness is common in learners that do experience traumas in their lives. As a learner you may learn somethin today and unfortunately you have forgotten it it the next day and there is no clear reasons for forgetting the topic or subject. Many examples include a learner continuously forgetting their books at home or hostels. It is known that traumatic experiences have a tremendous  effect on memory and if not given attention fast, can cause impaired memory.  

Apathy refers to the state of lacking emotions or feeling about anything. It involves being disinterested in anything that requires a learners attention. As a learner you may find yourself disassociated from class activities and lectures. You find yourself not interested in anything and no effort to do do anything related to achieving your goals. This is normally a body reaction that develops to mentally defend a victim from further distress. 

Trauma creates a sense on insecurity in a person and so triggers a defense mechanism that can only be felt to be done when the person is completely in charge and usually wants it done their way. A traumatized person usually becomes an ardent lover of perfectionism. They usually demand high standards possible and want everything perfect. In this they feel it can actually make them safe preventing any chance of another traumatic experience.   

The other manifestation of trauma is usually anger outbursts. We usually have people who claim to be short tempered. They get constant agers at anything they consider not according to how they would prefer it done or someone is perceived to have crossed the line. Anger outbursts are a manifestation of trauma because it normally affects the person's self esteem by lowering it. 

Trauma is very dangerous emotional response because it affects much in our lives. It hinders learning in learners, concentration in adults doing about their daily businesses, failure to grow as an individual, and but only lack social relations. If traumatic responses are not dealt with in time, they may develop into Post Traumatic, Stress Disorder (PTSD), a condition of persistent mental and emotional stress. So, it is very fundamental that person seeks therapy to deal with trauma before it becomes severe.