Cork Views: Supporting people suffering from trauma

Fri, 13 Jun, 2025 - 06:57

Trauma Awareness Day falls on June 27, and in Ireland, it couldn’t be more relevant.

One in four Irish people will struggle with their mental health at some point in their life, with one in eight having PTSD or CPTSD.

There is also a well-documented connection between trauma and addiction, as people often turn to substances or behaviours to numb or escape overwhelming psychological pain.

And while the word ‘traumatising’ is often used casually to describe something shocking or uncomfortable, in clinical and emotional terms, trauma goes much deeper than that.

What Trauma Really Is

Trauma comes in many shapes and sizes and can have many different causes. It can be caused by a single, overwhelming event such as a car crash, a medical emergency, or a natural disaster. Or it could be complex trauma, which stems from repeated, ongoing experiences such as domestic abuse, childhood neglect, bullying, or the often-overlooked trauma of being disabled in an ableist society.

Then there’s also intergenerational trauma, which is passed down through families. Children of parents or grandparents who endured deep emotional wounds may carry those wounds unknowingly, through inherited behaviours, beliefs, and stress responses.

An Irish Lens on Trauma

Even just looking at recent Irish history, we see how collective trauma has left lasting scars: The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the mother and baby homes and Magdalene laundries, mass emigration and cultural separation, and the widespread sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the catholic church.

Each of these historical experiences has left their own scars, physically and psychologically impacting individuals, families, and entire communities. The effects continue to be passed down silently through the generations.

How Trauma Works in the Body and Mind

Trauma occurs when we’re exposed to physical or psychological pain we’re not equipped to handle, causing our system to go into survival mode. Without the right tools or support, the pain gets buried, but it doesn’t go away, and will manifest in unconscious or uncontrollable ways.

Triggers will bring a person right back to the traumatic event. A sound, a colour, a tone of voice, or something seemingly unrelated can bring back a traumatic memory and flood the body with panic or fear. This trauma response brings back the fight, flight, or freeze response that someone experienced at the time and can cause people to react with anger, shutdown, or complete overwhelm as they relive the event.

The effects of trauma are pervasive and can affect every area of a person’s life:

Physical health (chronic pain, fatigue)
Mental health (anxiety, depression, suicidality)
Emotional wellbeing (mood swings, numbness)
Behaviour (avoidance, aggression, withdrawal)
Relationships (difficulty trusting, isolating, feeling unsafe with others)

Because of all of these reasons, many will turn to self-harm or substance use as a way to cope with the immense psychological pain.

Trauma Is Not a Weakness - It’s Survival

As the effects of trauma are so pervasive, a holistic approach that works with both body and mind can be incredibly helpful, and often necessary. This is because trauma isn’t just a story in your head, it lives in your body, your nervous system, and in your sense of safety. If people could just ‘get over it’, they would.

Lasting trauma has nothing to do with weakness or failure, it’s a survival response. It’s a completely normal reaction to an unbearable situation.

For many survivors, talk therapy alone isn’t enough. Many are extremely self-aware and can explain exactly what’s happening to them, but still struggle to change their day-to-day experience. That’s where holistic and body-based therapies such as EMDR, somatic work, art therapy, movement and/or mindfulness, can be extremely beneficial.

All of these can help the body process what the mind is unable to comprehend. And because trauma is often accompanied by shame, and shame thrives in isolation - talking to someone, particularly a trained professional who won’t push you and will go at your pace, can be an incredibly healing experience.

A Call for Empathy

In this world. we are often so quick to judge others. For being irrational, for over-reacting, for being too sensitive, or just strange. Yet we are all shaped by our lived experiences.

Most of the time, people’s reactions have everything to do with them and nothing to do with you. Understanding trauma invites us to meet people with curiosity instead of judgment. To ask ‘what happened to you?’ instead of ‘what’s wrong with you?’

How to Support Someone with Trauma

If you know someone who has experienced trauma, the most helpful things you can offer are patience, compassion, and understanding.

Listen without judgement. Don’t try to fix them. Respect their boundaries. Educate yourself about trauma. Be mindful of their triggers. Most importantly, validate their reality, even if it’s very different from your own. Someone else’s experience being different to yours doesn’t make it any less real or any less valid.

Mirin Mooney is a trauma-informed neurodivergent-affirmative psychotherapist. For more info visit www.wildheart-wellness.com