Trauma is something painful or frightening that leaves a lasting wound or fear and feelings of helplessness. Usually it comes all of a sudden, unexpectedly.
There are a lot of things that are traumatic.
Breaking a bone is a type of trauma -- that's physical trauma.
Getting very sick and having to be rushed to the hospital can be traumatic -- all the confusion, the lights, maybe a fever that causes you to be unable to think and understand what's going on. All of that can make it very frightening and traumatic. It can certainly make you feel helpless if you're too sick to move or talk, if you're strapped on the gurney -- that rolling bed they use to take you to the emergency room, or if people have to stick needles in you or force you to do something you don't want to do so they can help you.
Car accidents can be traumatic, even if no one gets hurt.
A baby can roll off a bed and fall on the floor and that can be traumatic -- for both the baby and the parent, even if the baby isn't really hurt.
Watching a car accident, watching someone get hurt, watching police having to make a forceful arrest or someone getting shot, watching someone die. All of those can be traumatic, even though you were just watching.
Someone getting very very angry and screaming at you can be emotionally traumatic.
Having a terrible nightmare can be traumatic.
A child getting lost in a shopping mall can be traumatic for both the child and the child's parents or caretakers.
A death in the family can be traumatic.
An earthquake can be traumatic.
Starving can be traumatic. People who are too poor to eat well might have trauma from that.
There are a lot of other types of trauma, but these are good examples of how different traumas can be. Most of these traumas happen only once. Or don't happen very often. There's a difference between traumas like that -- say a car accident -- and traumas like starving which happen for a very long time nearly every day. It seems that the ones that happen often, or a whole bunch of these shorter traumas mixed up in one's childhood, are more likely to cause someone to become multiple.
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