Understanding Trauma Responses: What Happens Inside of Us

What Is Trauma?

Many people think of trauma as a single event—an accident, assault, or disaster. But trauma is much more than the experience itself. It’s the internal shift that happens in your body, brain, and emotions when your capacity to cope is overwhelmed.

As physician and trauma expert Dr. Gabor Maté explains:

“Trauma is not what happens to you. It’s what happens inside of you as a result of what happened to you.”

This shift in focus—from the event to the internal impact—is essential to understanding how trauma shapes our emotions, behaviors, and relationships.

The Four Trauma Responses

The body reacts to overwhelming situations by entering survival mode. There are four primary trauma responses:

1. Fight

This response activates when a person believes they can defend themselves. It often looks like anger, control, or confrontation.

2. Flight

In flight mode, the nervous system pushes you to escape danger. This can present as anxiety, restlessness, perfectionism, or overworking.

3. Freeze

When neither fight nor flight feels possible, the body may freeze. This leads to dissociation, numbness, and emotional shutdown.

4. Fawn

Coined by therapist Pete Walker, fawn is the learned survival behavior of appeasing others to stay safe. It often develops from childhood trauma and looks like people-pleasing, codependence, or difficulty asserting needs.

Each response is a natural, adaptive survival mechanism. But when trauma remains unresolved, these patterns can become chronic and automatic.

Trauma Lives in the Body, Not Just the Memory

Trauma changes how your nervous system functions. According to Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory, trauma shifts you out of safety and into defense states. Your amygdala becomes overactive, your prefrontal cortex shuts down, and your body holds onto fear long after the threat is gone.

As Dr. Bessel van der Kolk writes in The Body Keeps the Score, trauma is stored in the body. It shows up in flashbacks, chronic tension, digestive issues, sleep disturbances, and emotional numbing.

Examples of Trauma’s Internal Impact

• Feeling constantly unsafe or hyper-alert

• Difficulty trusting others

• Persistent shame, guilt, or unworthiness

• Emotional shutdown or mood swings

• Unexplained physical symptoms

• Repetitive patterns in relationships driven by fear or control

These responses are not character flaws. They are your nervous system’s way of trying to protect you.

Why Gabor Maté’s Perspective Matters

Dr. Maté reframes trauma not as what happened, but as the wound that lingers inside. In In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, he explores how addiction, chronic illness, and emotional dysfunction often originate in unresolved trauma and disconnection from self.

Healing trauma isn’t just about revisiting the past. It’s about shifting how the past still lives inside of you.

Healing Trauma: What Helps?

Trauma healing focuses on safety, connection, and integration. Evidence-based methods include:

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) – Shapiro, 2001

• Somatic Experiencing – Levine, 1997

• Internal Family Systems (IFS) – Schwartz, 2001

• Polyvagal-informed therapy – Porges, 2011

• Phase-based trauma therapy – Cloitre et al., 2012

• Mindfulness and somatic practices

These approaches help regulate the nervous system, release stored trauma, and restore emotional resilience.

You Are Not Your Trauma Response

If you:

• Shut down when someone gets too close

• Struggle to say no

• Feel overwhelmed by everyday tasks

• Avoid conflict at all costs

…you may be living in a trauma adaptation. Naming these patterns is the first step toward healing. They were strategies for survival—now they can be gently replaced with self-awareness, choice, and compassion.

Final Thoughts

Trauma is not just an external event. It’s the imprint it leaves on your nervous system, your emotions, and your sense of self.

By understanding your trauma responses, you begin the process of healing—not by blaming yourself, but by honoring the ways your body and mind tried to protect you. As Gabor Maté reminds us, recovery starts when we listen to what’s happening inside.

References

• Maté, G. (2010). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

• Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score

• Porges, S. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory

• Levine, P. (1997). Waking the Tiger

• Schwartz, R. (2001). Internal Family Systems Therapy

• Walker, P. (2013). Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

• SAMHSA (2014). Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services

• Cloitre, M. et al. (2012). Treatment for Complex PTSD: A phase-based model