Hyper-arousal
During times of conflict or stress, most people experience symptoms such as increased heartbeat and breathing, agitation, difficulty in sleeping, tension, muscular jitteriness, racing thoughts or perhaps an anxiety attack.
These signs are usually due to some form of hyper arousal. If hyper-arousal, constriction, dissociation, and helplessness form the core of the traumatic reaction, then hyper-arousal is the seat in that core.
When a situation is perceived as a threat to one’s survival, the energy mobilized is much higher than for other situations in our lives. Hyper arousal cannot be controlled by us.
Trauma symptoms begin to develop as short term solutions to the dilemma of un-discharged energy. The constellation of symptoms is organized around a dominant theme. These themes are constriction, dissociation, and helplessness.
