“It Was Like He Was Possessed”: 50 Times People Were Seriously Freaked Out By Real Life

When people go through scary/traumatic experiences, like the ones in this list, it can have a profound impact on them and how they perceive the world around them, says Leah Riddell, MS, LCMHC, practice owner and therapist at Origins Counselling and Wellness.

"Some of our core beliefs ideally revolve around feeling safe in our environment, and when those core beliefs are shaken up, the world looks and feels different. 

As trauma therapists, we see a wide range of experiences from our clients. Most often, folks will develop a fear around an aspect of the experience. Usually, these fears can generalize: think dark rooms, certain types of people or animals, sounds (such as alarms or songs playing while the experience happened). The scary part for many folks can also be intrusive memories, nightmares, or flashbacks of the event," she explains.

Going through a traumatic event can also overwhelm a person's ability to cope and make them feel helpless, unsafe, or out of control, says trauma therapist Alyssa Kushner, LCSW.

"Trauma is less about what happened and more about how the nervous system experienced it because trauma doesn't just live in our memories—it lives in our bodies and nervous systems!

Traumatic experiences can leave people feeling stuck in survival mode, where their bodies stay on high alert, shut down, or are easily triggered even after the danger has passed (because their nervous system still believes they are under threat or trying to protect themselves from potential threat).

This can impact sleep, relationships, memory, digestion, emotional regulation, and more. It can also lead to (especially if it goes unprocessed and unresolved) anxiety, avoidance, difficulty with regulating emotions, and a sense of never feeling fully safe."

As Kushner already mentioned, how we experience trauma is dependent on our nervous system. So if someone possesses a good regulation and a good support network, their reaction to a scary/traumatic event, like worrying, difficulty sleeping, fear, and guilt, can be brief, says trauma therapist Shay DuBois.

On the other hand, "If someone has a trauma history, a history of neglect, or insecure attachment where they didn't have someone to help them regulate when they were young... well, that can be a whole different story. That is where people can go into fight, flight, or freeze. People may dissociate, feel like their body isn't theirs, have difficulty eating or sleeping, get headaches, go around with tension in their body, and not know why," DuBois further explains.

"They can become hypervigilant and feel like something bad is going to happen at any moment. Trauma can really steal someone's life from them. They could disconnect from themselves and from the world because it doesn't feel safe."

It's important not to ignore or suppress the emotions and memories that a person might be feeling after a scary or traumatic experience, as they don't go anywhere, even though distractions might work for a while.

"Suppression can work, for a while. Distraction can work, for a while... this is why people scroll on their phones, play mindless games, watch videos, and shop or eat compulsively," notes DuBois.

"However, the body does keep the score. It is going to be there whether you want to think about it or not. Suppression can bring about angry outbursts, difficulty sleeping, dissociation, and even physical health issues. This can lead to difficulty in relationships, difficulty concentrating and functioning, and chronic health issues.

I work with clients who can't remember what happened to them, but there is body pain, an inability to trust others, and a feeling of not being good enough. It shows up in different ways, but it shows up."

"When we push trauma and difficult emotions away, they do not go away–they just show up in other ways!" Kushner agrees.

"Avoidance, ignoring, and suppressing emotions are protective strategies to keep you from facing these difficult feelings, but they can lead to anxiety, panic attacks, depression, emotional outbursts, low self-esteem, and even physical symptoms that seem to come “out of nowhere,” for example, chronic tension, headaches, GI issues, and stomachaches.

The more we try to suppress it, the bigger it will come out later! So the sooner you can face it (like with a trauma-informed therapist), the more you can truly move through it and process it."

When coping with scary/traumatic experiences, having someone trustworthy, who doesn't invalidate or dismiss your feelings, to talk about them can have a huge impact, says Riddell.

"We usually recommend that within a few weeks of an event, you have someone whom you feel safe with and trust to discuss and support you, and let you know that you're safe. Talking about the experience will feel distressing, but feeling those emotions and noticing the safety in the environment (post-event) can help calm your nervous system and help you recognize that the event is over and in the past."