Traumatic Crisis of Domestic Abuse

Domestic abuse is a traumatic crisis that can lead to psychological trauma, particularly when the abuse is repeated and the sense of security cannot be reconstructed. Abuse affects a person’s sense of safety and security. Trust in other people, as well as in authorities and society more broadly, may be reduced.

Crisis reactions are a natural response to traumatic events, and allowing them to occur generally supports healing. Common crisis reactions include numbness, emotional paralysis, fear, panic, trembling, flashbacks and intrusive memories, overwhelming emotions, memory difficulties, and insomnia.

A traumatic crisis can shatter a person’s sense of basic safety and security. Rebuilding that sense of safety requires supportive circumstances. Recovery is often helped by spending time with trusted loved ones, experiencing a sense of belonging, looking after basic needs, and ensuring both physical and psychological safety.

Trauma symptoms are the mind’s way of protecting itself from experiences that feel overwhelming.

Traumatization occurs when a person is unable to recover sufficiently from a traumatic event within a reasonable period of time. If crisis reactions have not eased after approximately two to three months, they may begin to be considered trauma symptoms.

In addition to the reactions mentioned above, trauma symptoms may include avoidance behaviour, dissociation (a feeling of being disconnected from reality, the body, or one’s surroundings), and repeatedly reliving traumatic experiences as sensory flashbacks.

Memory difficulties are also very common among traumatized individuals. A person who has experienced abuse may not remember abusive incidents or other events clearly or completely.

Trauma symptoms are the mind’s way of protecting itself from experiences that feel too overwhelming to process with the resources currently available. However, if these symptoms continue over a long period of time, they can increase the risk of other difficulties, such as exhaustion, depression, suicidal thoughts, and problems in social relationships. Recovery from trauma can be supported through self-care and professional help. Understanding one’s own trauma responses is also an important part of healing.

Fight or Flight, Freeze or Fawn

In a threatening situation, people often enter what is known as the fight-or-flight response, during which the body’s autonomic nervous system takes control. This is also known as “acute stress response”. In this state, a person functions largely on “autopilot”, with survival becoming the primary goal.

This is a deeply instinctive response to danger. People do not consciously choose how they react in a threatening situation and therefore have only limited control over their responses.

In addition to fight and flight responses, researchers have also identified freeze and fawn responses. All four commonly occur in situations involving domestic abuse.

The fight response causes a person to try to stop the threat by resisting or fighting back. For example, a victim of physical assault may attempt to hit their attacker. From a survival perspective, the fight response can be effective in situations that pose a serious threat to life and where there is no immediate opportunity to escape.

The flight response involves trying to escape from the threat. For example, a victim may run out of the home to get away from the perpetrator. Flight is often a sensible survival response when an escape route is available, and the threat is too great to confront directly.

The freeze response causes a person to become immobilized, paralyzed or unable to act in a threatening situation. They may respond very little, or not at all, to what is happening around them. The freeze response can be accompanied by dissociation, including feelings of detachment from reality, the body, or one’s own thoughts and emotions. From a survival perspective, freezing can be an adaptive response in situations where escape is not possible and fighting back may increase the danger. It is particularly common in situations involving sexual violence. For example, a victim of rape may be unable to resist because they have become involuntarily paralyzed by fear.

The fawn response has the purpose of reducing danger by appeasing, pleasing, or complying with the person causing the threat. This response is relatively common in situations involving ongoing intimate partner violence and among people who grew up in unsafe or unpredictable home environments. The fawn response can be confusing both for victims and for those around them because it may appear as though the victim is willingly accepting the abuse. In many situations involving domestic abuse, however, appeasing the perpetrator may be the strategy that best prevents the situation from escalating and becoming life-threatening.

Traumatic Crisis of Domestic Abuse

Fight or Flight, Freeze or Fawn

Read more about domestic violence