What to do if someone with PTSD pushes you away

You may know what it feels like to witness someone you deeply care about suffer or possibly unravel. It can feel helpless, powerless and heartbreaking. Did you extend a tender and gentle invitation to help like dropping texts of “I’m here for you” or a direct “what can I do to help?” only to got a definitive ‘no’ as a response? The rejection could have been a confusing “No, I’m fine” or an angry “leave me alone”; either one, or a response in-between, can seem irrational since this person, from your perspective, is clearly suffering.

Being pushed away and rejected for trying to help or even connect with someone who may have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) can feel confusing, irrational, and you might take it personally thinking you’ve said or done something wrong. But the more you know about trauma and how the body experiences it, stores it, and protects you from future trauma, you will find out that it makes total sense.

First, let's talk about trauma.  

There are the Big “T” traumas, a singular traumatic event that could have happened days or decades ago and Little “t” traumas, an an accumulation of smaller or less pronounced events. The common thread for both of these are that someone experienced something really scary and felt very alone in it and/or dealing with. The ‘alone’ part doesn’t assume you were physically alone, just that you felt alone. For instance someone /others could be there with you during the experience or afterwards but if they don’t talk with you about it or even acknowledged that it happened, the sense of ‘alone’ can code the experience into the victim as one as a major threat of survival.

Once the body has encoded an experience as a threat to survival it is remembered and stored within the limbic system, which allows it to be recalled easily and quickly as opposed to long-term memory. If the victim of Big T or Little t trauma(s) gets emotional support, empathy, compassion, tenderness and an opportunity to process it with help from family, friends, or a professional than the trauma has a good chance of moving into long-term memory.

However, if the experience stays in the limbic system, for a variety of reasons, then this past experience can be triggered, or ‘lit up’, months or years later with something as small as a sound or a smell, and the victim can feel like the trauma is happening all over again, even though it is not. Though there is more to the criteria for a mental health professional to diagnose this is PTSD, although it is a simplified and general definition.

When I am working with my people who have experienced trauma I like to get them familiar with our miraculous autonomic nervous system which I call ‘the danger detection system’. The reason why someone with PTSD can get triggered months or years later is that our danger detection system picks up a perceived threat and rings the internal alarms so that this time around we can be better prepared to fight, run, scream or freeze in an attempt to survive. And for some, the danger detection system can keep us locked into fight/run/scream mobilization (sympathetic nervous system) or into frozen immobilization (a dorsal vagal response within parasympathetic nervous system).

If your loved one has entered into a sympathetic nervous system state they are behaving in accordance with their wiring if they get angry, confrontational or want to run away from you. Their physiological state does not allow them to just calm down; they need to be seen and acknowledged that they are experiencing something really frightening and letting them know that you want to be by their side while they go through this can be very helpful.

If they still push you away, please respond with tenderness and especially without judgment! Let them know you love them, can see and feel their suffering, and want them to know they are not alone. If your loved one can see your face, hear your voice, or physically be close to you during this interaction, all the better, as your grounded and non-judgmental stance can help them feel safe, connected and protected.

Once your person has come out of the fight/flight or freeze response you may want to talk with them, in a non-judgmental and compassionate way, about seeking help from a trauma-informed mental health professional.