#cause-effect essay

Traumatic events can happen to everyone.. When you experience a traumatic event, your body creates stress responses, which can make you feel a variety of physical symptoms, behave differently, and experience more intense emotions. For example, nice and polite men or women suddenly turn to be active or passive aggressive when they see, hear, smell, or think of something that reminds them of a past traumatic event in some way (Raypole, 2019). That kind of reaction is one example of unhealed trauma. The consequence of an unhealed trauma is behavioral changes such as avoidance, possessiveness, and uncontrollable anger -- all of which are understood to be a self-defense when we are facing past traumatic events.

First of all, one of the symptoms is avoidance. Avoidance behaviour is any act or series of actions that enables an individual to avoid or anticipate unpleasant or painful situations or events (American Psychological Association, 2021). In short, people that have unhealed trauma will tend not to try new things, especially activities that have risks. Some of these symptoms of this behavior can manifest in difficulties of trusting others, being hypersensitive, avoiding activities that involve other people, reducing interactions with others, and so on. By reducing their encounters and interactions with other people, unhealed trauma's people think they will feel more secure because there are fewer factors that might hurt them or remind them of past traumas. Having this symptom makes it difficult for people to get along with others, so most of them have a few friends, which may lead to possessiveness.

As mentioned , the second symptom is possessiveness. Possessiveness is an abnormal tendency to control or dominate others, generally involving the restriction of their social relationships (American Psychological Association, 2021). This abnormal behavior occurs because of insecurity and jealousy, which can also lead to acts of crossing boundaries and disrespecting each other's independence. Because of possessiveness, someone can take disrespectful actions such as checking their partner's cell phone, following their partner wherever they go, interrogating their partner, and so on. At a more severe level, possessiveness can hurt both themselves and their partners for no good reason. This action is a form of coping so that they can calm their own emotions (Firestone, 2020). The pain of being betrayed in a previous relationship will make a person traumatized and more careful with the relationship he/she is in now which sometimes turns into a possessive behaviour as a shield so as not to be hurt again or recall his/her traumas.

Last but not the least, another symptom of an unhealed trauma can be uncontrollable anger. Anger, which is emotional release characterized by tension arising from frustration, real or imagined injury by others, or perceived injustice, can manifest itself in behaviors designed to remove the object of the anger or to express the emotion (American Psychological Association, 2021). On the other hand, anger can be categorized as uncontrollable if it has had a damaging effect on others, resulting in physical damage to property and other people. An example of this would be destructive actions such as fighting, hitting, throwing, breaking things, etc. As an outcome of unhealed trauma, uncontrollable anger is our subconscious defense against pain and hurt feelings. It might be a momentary defense against hurt feelings, but it cannot solve neither the problem nor heal the trauma.