Living With Trauma: The Hidden Battle Behind Mental Health Struggles

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Understanding Trauma and Its Lasting Impact

Trauma can leave invisible scars that impact mental health for years, triggering conditions like OCD, intrusive thoughts, and isolation. But recovery is possible, and sharing lived experiences can pave the way for healing.

Trauma isn’t just a memory, it’s a deep wound that can silently shape every part of a person’s life. From bereavement and abuse to breakups and betrayal, traumatic experiences disrupt emotional balance and can rewire the brain’s response to fear, safety, and trust.

Types of Trauma: The Unseen Wounds People Carry

Trauma can result from any experience that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope, leaving them feeling helpless, violated, or unsafe.

Below is a more comprehensive list of traumatic events that may affect mental health, contribute to conditions like OCD, PTSD, and depression, and take years, or a lifetime, to process.

Bereavement and Loss

• The death of a parent, partner, sibling, or child can completely alter a person’s sense of identity and stability.
• Miscarriage or stillbirth can cause immense grief and trauma, often intensified by the invisibility of the loss to others.
• Suicide of a loved one leaves behind shock, guilt, unanswered questions, and complicated grief.

Crime-Related Trauma

• Burglary or home invasion can shatter a person’s sense of safety, especially for those with OCD around contamination or privacy.
• Robbery or mugging, especially with violence or the threat of it, often causes long-lasting anxiety, hypervigilance, or distrust.
• Sexual assault or abuse deeply impacts self-worth, boundaries, and emotional regulation.

Relationship-Related Trauma

• Domestic violence (physical, emotional, financial, or psychological) leaves lasting damage to a person’s confidence and safety.
• Infidelity or betrayal can lead to trust issues, low self-esteem, and identity crises.
• Divorce or relationship breakdowns, especially when tied to co-dependency or abuse, can feel like a loss of self.

Accidents and Physical Trauma

• Car accidents, falls, or injuries—even when physically survived, can cause flashbacks, fear of travel, and PTSD.
• Medical trauma, including traumatic surgeries, misdiagnoses, or chronic illness diagnoses, may cause ongoing psychological stress.

Combat and War Trauma

• Veterans and refugees often experience severe trauma from war, displacement, and violence.
• PTSD is common among those who have witnessed or been part of military conflict, bombings, or combat missions.

Financial Trauma

• Bankruptcy or business collapse can cause shame, anxiety, and loss of identity, especially when tied to years of work.
• Job loss or long-term unemployment leads to chronic stress, depression, and feelings of worthlessness.

Natural Disasters and Environmental Trauma

• Fires, floods, earthquakes, or hurricanes can destroy homes and communities, causing not only material loss but emotional devastation.
• Survivors often face survivor’s guilt or live in fear of recurrence.

Childhood Trauma

• Neglect, abandonment, or abuse during formative years affects attachment, trust, and self-worth throughout adulthood.
• Being raised in a volatile or alcoholic home can create deep-rooted emotional dysregulation.

Emotional and Psychological Abuse

• Gaslighting, humiliation, or bullying, whether in person or online, can be as harmful as physical abuse—especially when prolonged.
• Coercive control, where someone systematically manipulates or dominates another, can cause complex trauma and fear-based compliance.

Existential or Identity-Based Trauma

• Being discriminated against due to disability, race, sexuality, gender identity, or religion creates repeated emotional wounds that build over time.
• Cultural trauma, experienced by entire communities, can be passed down generationally and impact mental health collectively.

No trauma is too “small” or insignificant. What matters is how the event was experienced and how it continues to affect a person’s life. Trauma is not about weakness—it is about survival in the face of overwhelming pain. And for every experience listed above, there is a path to healing, even if that path looks different for everyone.

Recovery from trauma is not linear. For some, it can take years. For others, the pain may never completely fade.

When Trauma Triggers OCD and Intrusive Thoughts

One of the lesser-known responses to trauma is the onset or worsening of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), particularly when trauma involves a loss of control, contamination, or harm.

Intrusive thoughts, unwanted, distressing mental images or fears, can plague survivors. These thoughts are often:

• Violent or catastrophic in nature
• Based on irrational fears (e.g., harming others, being contaminated, or dying suddenly)
• Accompanied by intense guilt or shame

To cope, some individuals develop ritualistic behaviours to neutralise or “undo” these thoughts, which can evolve into full-blown OCD.

Living with Germ Contamination OCD

For people with germ-related OCD, everyday activities become overwhelming. A handshake, touching a doorknob, or receiving a parcel may spark intense fear. To manage this, sufferers may:

• Avoid public transport, crowded places, or visitors
• Change clothes multiple times a day
• Wash hands excessively until they bleed
• Sanitize every object they come into contact with
• Refuse to eat food not prepared by themselves
• Avoid opening post or handling cash

In extreme cases, the person may isolate completely, not due to a lack of desire for connection, but out of embarrassment and fear of contamination. This isolation can lead to loneliness, depression, and further deterioration of mental health.

The Editor’s Personal Journey Through Trauma

The editor of Disabled Entrepreneur UK has lived through a series of painful and life-altering traumas, including:

1. Being bullied and racial abuse from as early as 5 years old, where she was cornered and spat on, all the way to secondary school, where she was continually threatened and bullied by the popular girls, circa 1968 – 1979.
2. A relationship breakup that shook her foundations and paved the way for her downward spiral in her mental health, circa 1984.
3. The assault and a holiday resort, circa 1992.
4. The failure of a marriage and her husband’s business, where she was the financial fall guy, circa 2001.
5. The loss of both parents, circa 2004 to 2007.
6. The loss of her brother, circa 2011.
7. Endured domestic violence, both physical and mental, by a Western European migrant, circa 2012.
8. The invasion of her property by an intruder who stole her daughter’s keys and let himself in (It was not classed as a break-in, therefore the insurance company did not pay out) whilst she was on holiday, with the theft of all her valuables and business assets, circa 2015.
9. The home was raided by the Police when a neighbour had bought a stolen MacBook, which pinged the building rather than the exact location, circa 2016.
10. The passing of her ex-husband, which she never found closure, circa 2021.

These events created lasting emotional wounds, triggering severe OCD, particularly around contamination, and leading to a life marked by social withdrawal, anxiety, and constant mental battles. But rather than surrendering to despair, she is now actively seeking closure, has renewed her faith, and is working through each layer of pain, and using her platform to help others find their voice and path forward.

The Path to Healing: What Can Help?

Healing from trauma is not a one-size-fits-all journey. But here are some of the ways people can begin to mend their wounds:

• Therapy: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), and trauma-informed counselling can be life-changing.
• Routine: Establishing small, manageable routines can help bring structure and safety.
• Creative outlets: Writing, art, music, and photography can allow expression where words fall short.
• Support groups: Finding others who understand your experience can reduce isolation and provide hope.
• Self-forgiveness: Recognising that trauma is not your fault is an essential step in recovery.
• Self Help Therapy: Writing, learning, teaching and paying it forward with the vision of saving another soul.

Ways Someone Living with Trauma Can Help Others – and Themselves

1. Share Your Story (When Ready)

Opening up about your experiences—whether through writing, speaking, or art—can:

• Validate the pain of others who feel alone
• Reduce stigma around trauma, mental illness, or OCD
• Help you process and make sense of your journey
  Even a short social media post or blog entry can spark a powerful connection.

2. Offer Peer Support

Sometimes, just listening makes all the difference. You don’t need formal training to:

• Be there for a friend or a stranger going through something similar
• Join or create an online support group or forum
• Send someone a message to say, “You’re not alone.”

Supporting others can remind you of your strength and resilience.

3. Model Self-Care and Boundaries

By:

• Taking time for rest
• Saying “no” when needed
• Prioritising therapy or healing
  You show others that healing is a priority, not a luxury, and you inspire them to do the same. Leading by example is powerful.

4. Start a Healing Blog or Journal Project

Whether private or public, a healing journal, blog, or creative writing project can:

• Help you track your own progress
• Provide relatable content for others
• Create a safe space for emotional release

Bonus: it can also build confidence and serve as a legacy of hope.

5. Educate and Advocate

Use your lived experience to:

• Raise awareness (especially for lesser-understood conditions like OCD)
• Challenge stigma in your community
• Speak up about accessibility, mental health rights, or trauma-informed care

People with trauma often become passionate advocates because they know how crucial compassion and understanding really are.

6. Volunteer in Trauma-Informed Spaces

When emotionally ready, consider:

• Volunteering at helplines or crisis services
• Supporting domestic abuse charities, mental health groups, or community centres
• Offering admin or creative help if direct support work feels too heavy

Helping others with similar struggles can be grounding and affirming.

🧩 7. Learn and Grow

Healing is lifelong, but so is learning. Trauma survivors can:

• Enrol in mental health or counselling courses (even short online ones)
• Read about psychology or self-healing
• Learn coping tools like mindfulness, grounding, or somatic therapy

What helps you today might help someone else tomorrow.

8. Hold Space for Others – Without Fixing Them

You don’t need to fix anyone. Sometimes the most healing thing is:

• Sitting in silence with someone grieving
• Saying “I’ve been there too”
• Just holding space for their emotions without judgment

Your presence becomes a gift.

9. Be Gentle With Yourself

Helping others starts with self-kindness:

• Celebrate your small wins
• Accept bad days without guilt
• Remind yourself that you’re doing the best you can

Your healing helps others more than you realise—because when you show it’s possible to survive and keep going, you give others permission to hope.

Message of Hope: There Is a Way Forward

Although trauma may never fully disappear, it can be transformed into strength. By understanding its roots, recognising how it impacts the mind and body, and gently working toward recovery, survivors can reclaim their lives. The editor is a testament to this. Through her pain, she has cultivated purpose, using her lived experience to educate, support, and inspire others who feel lost in the shadows of trauma and mental illness. Her message is clear: you are not alone, you can get through this!