Psychological shock and occurs when a person has an intense emotional reaction in response to a highly distressing or traumatic event. These events are often unexpected and catch people off guard causing their brain to struggle with processing the situation. This often then leads to a surge of emotions with physical symptoms such as a rapid heartbeat, nausea, numbness and problems functioning normally. Examples of events that might lead to emotional shock can include:
• A car accident or near miss
• The end of a relationship or job.
• An accident or near miss at work or at home.
• Witnessing or hearing something traumatic such as a death
• Seeing or hearing news stories about war, hardship or traumatic events
• Financial stressors and unexpected events.
• Going to court or into a situation that causes you fear, like flying or the dentist.
Your reaction to these events is often linked to how close you are to the event and will range from mildly distressing to significant emotional shock. Some symptoms of emotional shock can include:
• Feeling a surge of adrenalin
• Feeling jittery or nauseas
• Your brain might feel cloudy or foggy
• You may feel out of your body or realise that your chest feels really tight
• Your may feel disconnected to what is happening, a bit like watching a movie.
• You may feel intense emotions such as anger and want to scream, cry or yell
• You may feel like you want to run or are frozen.
Strategies for dealing with emotional shock can include:
• Slow down your breathing and extend your outbreath to be twice as long as your inbreath.
• Give yourself time to calm down before acting so that your head is clear.
• Ask people around you to repeat things if you feel that you are not able to hear them correctly.
• Check to see if your holding tension, pain or stiffness in your body and consciously relax the muscles.
• Go to a place where you feel safe and are surrounded by supportive people.
• Make sure you eat and stay hydrated.
• Connect with loved ones including pets.
• Use distraction activities while you process the events – music, movies, games.
• Don’t try to talk about the situation or event until your ready and don’t feel like you will be overwhelmed.
• Respect where you’re at and let safe spaces, people and comforting objects ease you our to it in a non-pressuring way.
