Is Being Self Aware a Trauma Response?

4.5K

A Look at the Connections Between Self Awareness and Trauma

As you continue on with your mental health journey, a specific question may come up – is being self aware a trauma response?

People with past trauma battle many issues, including feeling like they may have too much self awareness for their own good. If that sounds like you, this page should help you understand what is going on with this self awareness issue and whether it’s something that needs to change.

Dealing with trauma is an ongoing challenge that shouldn’t be tackled by yourself. If you feel like you are in your own head about your trauma, or if you have low self esteem and struggle with self acceptance, help is available. The talented and friendly team at Catalina Behavioral Health would be proud to serve you on this important matter.

Your next big step on the path of self improvement is to call Catalina Behavioral Health today to learn more about our treatment options. You’ll be greeted by an experienced voice who will listen to your problems and discuss options for moving forward. Today is the day to take action.

Understanding Self Awareness in a Broad Context

It shouldn’t get lost on this page that self awareness is a positive trait in most settings. Being self aware can help you in plenty of areas of life and it’s something that you should generally want to increase and improve on over time.

But that doesn’t mean it comes without risks or threats. If self awareness becomes too active, it can get in your way. This is particularly true for people with trauma in their past. Such people may be constantly monitoring themselves and ruminating on things they did, or should have done. It can be a dangerous downward spiral as the self consciousness only gets more powerful over time.

What Does Self Awareness Mean?

In the bigger picture, self awareness is simply the ability to recognize your own thoughts and emotions and real time. You notice your strengths and weaknesses, are able to predict how you’ll respond to given situations, and more. There are two main types of self awareness, each of which is detailed below.

Internal Self Awareness

This type of self awareness covers how you are able to monitor your inner world. You can think of this area as being things like your emotions, your goals, your values, etc. Tending to your own emotions in a self conscious manner, and maintaining consistent personal values, fall into this category.

External Self Awareness

Here, we are talking about an understanding of the way you are perceived by others. This also includes the impact that you have on other people in your life. It’s helpful to have an accurate understanding of your place in the world around you, in order to make any adjustments that are needed to better serve others and your own goals at the same time.

Both of these sides of self awareness are important. Healthy social functioning relies on both, but if one or both of these areas becomes exaggerated, problems can quickly arise.

How Trauma Can Shape Your Internal World

The internal world you experience as you go through life can be powerfully impacted by traumatic experiences. You might not even be aware that past trauma is causing you to act or think in a certain way, but that’s exactly what can happen.

Over time, you may wind up being particularly aware of your environment and your own behaviors. Feeling this way can be exhausting and can make it hard to truly be present for your life.

Some of the signs of hyper awareness include those listed below.

Excessive People Pleasing

You might find yourself trying so hard to avoid conflict that you go out of your way to please everyone in your life. There’s nothing wrong with trying to help others, but people pleasing goes a step beyond and can become a negative trait.

Constant Overanalyzing

Self doubt can stem from trauma in the past. You might engage regularly in self criticism and overanalyze every decision you make throughout the day. When you can’t stop thinking long enough to simply relax and live, everything from social interactions to basic daily activities become a major chore.

Always Feeling Like You’re Not Enough

Do you struggle to feel like you are good enough for others? You might not feel sufficient in a relationship, or even at work. This is another issue that can be tied to exaggerated self awareness and past trauma. Even if you can realize with the logical part of your brain that you are good enough as a person, this pattern of overthinking could stand in your way.

Persistent Feelings of Guilt or Shame

One of the cruel things about trauma is how it can trick its survivors into feeling like the whole situation is their fault. You might struggle with feelings of guilt or shame over whatever happened in the past. This is common and it can be extremely limiting in life.

You may spend time ruminating over those past events and thinking about what you could have done differently. You end up taking ownership for all the problems, even if the bad thing or things that occurred were not your fault in any way.

Crossing the Line Into Self Surveillance

At this point, it’s helpful to think about the difference between self awareness and what we can call self surveillance. The former is a healthy function that allows you to manage yourself in the world around you.

Unfortunately, if you slip into the latter, you’ll be wearing yourself out with endless monitoring and worry. This is an easy line to cross and you probably won’t even notice that it has happened.

You might fall into the category of self surveillance if you are constantly second-guessing everything you do throughout the day. You might worry that you said the wrong thing to someone at work or in your personal life. Then, you may blame yourself for getting stuck on that worry in the first place. Soon enough, you are in a spiral of self surveillance and blame, and you are living far outside the moment.

What Healthy Self Awareness Looks Like

Working toward a clear target of how self awareness should work and what it looks like will be an excellent starting point for progress. You may also want to get professional help for this matter (more on that in a moment), but simply knowing what you are aiming for can be a great help.

Noticing Emotions Without Feeling Overwhelmed

This is a great starting point. When your self awareness is at a healthy level, you notice that you are feeling a certain way – you sense it – but you don’t allow it to impact your behavior. You simply take note of the emotion, let it pass, and continue on with your day. Being able to stay on track without letting your emotions run away and take you in a new direction is a big step.

Understanding Your Patterns

Along the same lines, it’s helpful to understand how to spot your patterns and break them. It might not be easy to break those patterns alone, especially at first, but that’s okay. A huge bit of progress involves simply noticing that the patterns exist and that they might not be in your best interest. From there, you can find ways to build new patterns that will replace the old ones.

Staying Connected and Grounded

Being connected to others is great for your lasting mental health and overall well-being. But that doesn’t mean you have to be a people pleaser in order to maintain relationships with people who are important to you in life. Finding a balance of being connected with others while still being grounded in who you are as a person is not easy for a trauma survivor. But it’s also not impossible.

You don’t have to be disconnected from the world around you simply because you have been hurt in the past. It’s all about finding the right way to move forward in a healthy, positive manner.

Do You Need Professional Help for Trauma?

Simply being self aware is not necessarily a sign that you need professional help. This can be a positive trait in many ways. However, if it becomes too much and starts to have a negative impact on your life, getting help could be appropriate.

A starting point is to pay attention to the daily patterns in your life to look for problems. Are some of the ways you think each day leading to problems for you or loved ones? Powerful anxiety or a desire to fix everything and everyone around you can be exhausting.

It’s hard to learn how to stay in the present moment without getting help toward that end. A professional therapist can help you reengage with your immediate surroundings, get out of your own head, and start to live again in a way that you haven’t in years.

Self Development is an Ongoing Process: Get Support Today

There might not be a finish line in dealing with trauma and improving your everyday life, but significant progress is possible with the help of Catalina Behavioral Health. Continue your journey of self discovery by calling our facility to begin the process of receiving a customized treatment plan.

Don’t get stuck in an inner world that is focused on past trauma. If you constantly feel anxious, or struggle with negative thoughts and feelings, it can be hard to enjoy daily life. Let’s work on improving your connection to the outside world today. We look forward to your call.