Aggressive behavior is any behavior that is intended to harm or injure another person or animal. It can take many forms, including physical violence, verbal abuse, and emotional manipulation. Aggressive behavior is often motivated by anger, frustration, or a desire to control others.

Acceptance is that moment when you’re finally in a position to move forward with your healing. At this point you’ve reached a place where you have processed and acknowledged what happened to you and you're in a better mindset to deal with the emotions and consequences of having gone through something so traumatic. Many people believe that “acceptance” means forgiving the person who hurt you or even accepting what happened to you as being okay, but that’s not the case at all. What it actually means is that you’ve come to terms with the fact that it happened at all and you understand that it’s changed your life. It has nothing to do with forgiveness. Acceptance doesn’t mean  you don’t get angry or depressed about it anymore, either. 

It’s been a roller coaster. Your emotions have been all over the map and you’ve struggled to focus on what ‘real life’ might look like after having experienced the trauma you’ve survived. You’ve been distracted and focused on everything under the sun except what you’ve needed to focus on. Now, emotions are starting to even out, and the quiet stage of depression moves in like an unwelcome roommate. NOW WHAT?!

After we somehow manage to work through denial and learn to start coping with the anger, all of the underlying emotions connected to the trauma we survived start to become much more clear. It can be so overwhelming that the intensity is often too much and we don’t know how to cope with it all. You’re finally getting a first look at the real magnitude of what you’ve lost or what you’ve been through. At this point it’s an overwhelmingly natural response to want to gain control of your situation. The only way the brain can conceive of to get that control is through bargaining, though often through irrational means.

Moving past the denial of a traumatic event can take time, but once you’re past that one, the rest of the world sort of opens up for you - and it’s scarier than you might have imagined. The reality of what you survived starts smacking you upside the head like a brick being thrown from a fifth floor window. Being bombarded by that emotional overload starts to bring up all sorts of emotions you might not be ready for. The key emotion that will seem to take over everything is anger. Reality screams at you, and in turn, you want to scream right back.

Denial is considered the first stage of trauma and grief because it’s a type of defense mechanism. It helps to reduce the impact of what you’ve experienced so that you might have more time to evaluate what happened to you when you might be more ready to do so. The initial blow can be devastating, and our brains do what they can to protect us.

While denial is a protective measure, it won’t last forever. As much as we want to ignore what happened to us, eventually we will need to face the new reality.

Welcome to the first ever full episode of the Growth from Darkness podcast! This week the hosts Hrisanthi Dokos and Amanda Blackwood dig into what a trauma reaction is. But to fully understand a trauma reaction, it's important to understand what 'trauma' is and where it comes from. Listen in as they talk about personal experiences with trauma reactions, the different forms of trauma, and everything in between. There's even an unexpected visit from a possible ice cream man? 

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