You found out that your husband has repeatedly been having sex with more than one person outside of your marriage. Or you discovered that your husband views porn frequently throughout the day and night, even when he’s at work.
Learning that your partner has a sex or pornography addiction shatters your sense of safety and makes you feel like your relationship is a lie.
You know that an extremely difficult thing happened to you, and it’s clear that your mind and body haven’t been the same since. But how do you know if you’re traumatized?
Trauma can alter your mind and body, impacting your overall well-being. If you’ve experienced an event that changed your life, and you can’t seem to find your footing, chances are you’re experiencing emotional trauma.
Understanding Trauma
Emotional trauma is the lasting emotional response to experiencing a traumatic event or a series of traumatic events. A traumatic event is a death or near-death experience or a happening that makes you feel emotionally or physically unsafe.
Learning that your partner was physically or emotionally unfaithful is a traumatic experience, and it can cause emotional trauma symptoms.
Betrayal trauma is the trauma you experience when someone you trust deeply violates that trust in a significant way. This type of trauma can leave you feeling like you can never trust anyone again.
“Betrayal trauma occurs when someone turns out not to be as they presented themselves and as you thought they were,” said Laurie Hall, Therapist and Partner Support Program Facilitator at Begin Again Institute.
“It’s not because you didn’t understand the person or their intentions, but because they presented themselves in a deceitful way.”
Signs and Symptoms of Betrayal Trauma
Betrayal trauma is a unique form of trauma that occurs as a result of someone severely damaging your trust and leaving you feeling unsafe in relying on others. It shatters your sense of safety and well-being and makes you question your own judgment. In addition, it leaves you with physical and emotional trauma symptoms.
Signs of betrayal trauma include:
- Helplessness. Feeling overwhelmed or incapable of making even basic decisions in daily life.
- Reliving the Event. You find yourself ruminating about the discovery of the betrayal or repeatedly replaying situations in your mind where you think you should have noticed it.
- Hyper-Vigilance. Being frequently on edge or excessively alert. You’re afraid to relax because you may be hurt again.
- Withdrawal and Avoidance. Isolating yourself or avoiding certain situations or people.
- Mood Swings. Going from extreme sadness to rage and experiencing a myriad of emotions in between. You may direct these emotions at yourself, your partner, or others.
- Denial. Thinking maybe things aren’t as bad as you previously thought or denial about what’s happening.
- Depression. Extreme sadness that makes you not want to do anything. Feeling hopeless.
- Dissociation. Feeling removed from your life or experiences, like you’re an outsider looking in.
- Health Problems. Trauma can cause physical health problems related to stress, including headaches, chronic fatigue, and gastrointestinal issues.
Recognizing the signs of betrayal trauma is a key way to know if you’re traumatized and whether you need to seek professional help.
The Emotional Impact of Betrayal
Despite some common symptoms of betrayal trauma, everyone responds to betrayal differently.
Some of the emotional responses to betrayal are:
- Anger
- Self-doubt
- Shock
- Disbelief
- Grief and feelings of loss
- Obsessing about the details
- Sadness
- Shame
- Self-blame
These are just some of the emotions you may have after discovering betrayal. You may even cycle through emotions or experience frequently changing feelings.
“Trauma causes severe disruption to your life and can make you feel overwhelmed, unworthy, and like you can’t trust anyone or anything,” Laurie noted. “No one should have to live with these feelings, so seeking help to process what happened to you is critical.”
Just like with grief, people also go through typical stages when attempting to process and heal from betrayal. Everyone doesn’t experience all of these stages, but they’re likely to go through some of them when trying to process what happened to them and determine how to move forward.
The stages of betrayal trauma are:
- Shock. You can’t believe this is happening to you or that your partner would do what he did.
- Denial. You pretend the betrayal didn’t happen, that it’s a misunderstanding, or that it’s not that bad.
- Anger. You are overwhelmed by hurt and sadness, and use anger to try to protect yourself from what’s happening.
- Bargaining. Attempting to resolve or control the situation by making deals with yourself, your partner, or a higher power.
- Obsession. Wanting to know everything about the betrayal and analyze every surrounding decision, behavior, or action.
- Depression. An overwhelming sadness from being in this situation and not being able to easily fix it.
- Acceptance. Learning to accept what happened and move on.
The length of these stages or how long it takes to heal from betrayal trauma depends on each person’s unique situation.
How the Brain and Body React to Trauma
Betrayal trauma alters your mind and body, making you feel unsafe and lessening your ability to respond to stress. Betrayal makes you feel like you can’t trust your own instincts or ability to keep yourself safe, and every person or situation may be a danger to you. You feel like things are threatening that maybe didn’t bother you or didn’t even register to you before.
Your brain may react to betrayal trauma through:
- Fear and anxiety
- Uncertainty
- Feeling disconnected
- Memory lapses
- Emotional numbness
- Trying to please others
- Rumination on what you could have done to prevent the issue
“Betrayal makes you feel like you missed something that you should have been aware of,” Laurie stated. “Your mind does whatever it thinks is necessary to protect you from this happening again.”
Betrayal trauma doesn’t just alter your mind. It can also affect the body, since your mind and body are connected and work as a unit.
Your body may react to betrayal trauma through:
- Insomnia or oversleeping
- Heightened blood pressure
- Aversion to intimate touch
- Crying episodes
- Hair loss
- Gastrointestinal concerns
- Migraines
- Muscle pain or weakness
- Consistent infections
- Unexplained fevers
Healing and Recovery
Betrayal and the trauma that can result from it are incredibly overwhelming, but you can still heal and recover from betrayal trauma. It’s essential to remember that you don’t have to cope with betrayal trauma alone. There is help for healing and recovery.
To recover from betrayal trauma, you must first recognize what’s happened to you and how your mind and body are responding to it. Then, you must seek the help you need to heal.
“Trauma is unlikely to go away on its own,” Laurie explained. “You must face what happened and come to terms with it, even if the other person never takes responsibility for what they did to you.
“Your responsibility is to take care of yourself first. All other decisions can wait until you have time to process what’s happened to you.”
A trauma-informed therapist can help you better understand how your mind and body respond to trauma. They also can review your symptoms and help you develop healthy tools for coping with betrayal trauma.
“You don’t have to heal from betrayal trauma alone,” Laurie said. “A qualified mental health professional can help guide you through the process of identifying and understanding what’s happened and give you tools for moving forward.”
How to Know If You’re Traumatized
If you’ve experienced the trauma of betrayal and now you feel like you can’t trust anyone or anything, including yourself, you may be traumatized. It’s not uncommon to experience emotional trauma after betrayal, but you don’t have to process and heal alone.
Begin Again Institute can help you heal from betrayal trauma. Our 5-Day Partner Intensive Program helps you heal from the trauma of betrayal, stop betrayal trauma symptoms, and move forward with your life. Contact us today for more information.
