Long-term stress and trauma can affect your health, relationships, and parenting. Bridgette Jackson shares practical strategies to overcome challenges and rebuild connections.
We know that long-term stress can damage your health and personal life and contribute to farm accidents. It’s crucial to recognise and understand the profound impact of persistent stress on mental and physical wellbeing, as it can lead to unseen trauma and further complicate health.
The body’s response to continued stress, negative feelings and trauma is meant to protect us. As an expert in partner and intimate relationships, I see first-hand how this hidden nemesis can subtly control our actions and sabotage our successes without being aware of our behaviour; this is why it is essential to understand the link between stress and trauma.
Trauma can have a profound impact on your nervous system, memory, and emotional health, making it difficult to cope with everyday tasks. This highlights why it is important to recognise stress triggers and develop coping skills to mitigate the risk of trauma. Living and working rurally is rewarding yet undeniably stressful, keeping up with daily farm management tasks before balancing income and expenses, planning for the future, and keeping up with developments in your farming sector. Added pressures from extreme weather events, market fluctuations, and natural disasters can feel overwhelming. Social isolation and working long, irregular hours can only exacerbate these challenges.
How we respond and attempt to manage it or not ultimately impacts our inner being, our relationships and how we react and function. We do know that the old adage of being told ‘to get over it’ or ‘just deal with it’ doesn’t work, as no one can simply get over it. If we attempt to do this, we mentally store it away, just like we pack up a box of unwanted items and place it into storage. When we do that, what we have attempted to store away will come out again.
Understanding trauma and its impact
Stress affects various areas of the body, including the nervous system and memory. It’s important to remember that individual reactions to stress are unique and influenced by personality, support networks, and other life factors. The relentless challenges of farming, such as exhaustion, lack of sleep, isolation from friends and family, and the inability to take a 10-minute ‘tea break’, can all add to the risk.
I often witness the effects of these coping mechanisms as they often lead to a breakdown in communication, trust issues, and heightened anxiety for both partners. Over an extended period, that can turn into unresolved trauma, leading to impaired communication, emotional connection, and the ability to resolve conflict effectively, ultimately hindering personal fulfilment and the growth and fulfilment of the relationship.
Possible physical mechanisms and responses can include:
- Trouble sleeping
- A visible fear and anxiety
- Self-defence mechanisms such as physical and/or verbal outbursts
- Changes in appetite and food-related control, such as overeating or undereating
- Excessive use of alcohol and/or drugs to relieve symptoms
- Negativity, grief and depression
- Changes in intimacy and sexual relationships
- Physical and emotional abuse or control of other people
- Self-sabotage
- Responding with compassion and asking how you can give support when someone is struggling should be uppermost.
How unrecognised trauma can negatively impact people:
- Increased susceptibility to conflicts and difficulties in maintaining healthy interpersonal relationships with family, friends and others that someone interacts with
- Heightened sensitivity to triggers
- Impaired concentration and cognitive function, resulting in decreased productivity
- Persistent feelings of exhaustion and burnout, affecting overall wellbeing and work-life balance
- Physical manifestations include headaches, gastrointestinal issues, persistent pain from an old injury, and other stress-related ailments. It is also important to note that this doesn’t mean a health issue is not real or imagined, and it should always be taken seriously
- Reluctance in adapting to change or coping with uncertainty hinders the ability to navigate transitions or disruptions effectively
- Engaging in unhealthy coping mechanisms such as substance abuse or excessive use of technology as a means to escape
Trauma and relationships
Trauma can surface and resurface at any point in our lives without knowing what caused it. Despite possibly not being directly linked to our partner, we often find ourselves projecting the trauma on the people closest to us at that time. If the trauma doesn’t get resolved, mixed with the day-to-day stress, it can build up and lead to a couple breaking apart.
Signs of trauma affecting a relationship can look like:
- General lack of interest or numbness to certain situations
- Lack of physical intimacy and sexual disinterest
- Irritability, demanding and controlling behaviour
- Troubled sleep
- Tough talk
- Poor coping methods
- Prone to outbursts
These signs can either come from the partner going through the trauma or the partner who is on the receiving end of the trauma and, as a result, mentally checks out of the relationship. We all go through rough times, but addressing signs of trauma is a crucial first step before things become unfixable.
How trauma impacts relationships:
- Unhealthy communication
- Lack of emotional connection and a large distance between the couple
- Inability or disinterest in resolving issues
- Lack of trust
- Not caring enough to argue and letting things go that otherwise would have been a problem
- Disinterested in repairing the relationship or seeking relationship help
- Lack of respect when it comes to communication and not hearing each other out
- No common goals or alignment
- Sleeping separately, making plans separately and not knowing their whereabouts
- The person suffering trauma is unable to express themselves or communicate their emotions
- Either person in the relationship has said too much that cannot be unsaid
- One partner lacks compassion for the other person’s viewpoint
Once there is a disconnect that involves a few of these, a couple will struggle to keep their relationship aligned. As a couple, you need to be mutually determined and dedicated to fixing yourselves separately and together before even thinking about rebuilding. However, working long hours and having a farming business make it hard to focus on relationships in the main season.
It is important to not rush into any long-term decisions before you have exhausted all options, because adding a separation onto the list can cause extreme stress when owning the land, home and business together – especially if the separation could have been avoided in the first place with the right tools.
Options for the couple and family
If the couple agrees they want to work things out and find a way forward, you must take into account your circumstances before coming to an option that works best for you and your family. Considerations should include:
- Geographical location
- Financial status
- Work schedules
- Support networks such as access to counselling and other support services
- Employees, family and/or friends who can assist in the day-to-day farm management
- Access to hobbies or a space to remove yourself to separate from your partner
- WIFI connection/cell phone service
- Resources that are local to you
Furthermore, it’s beneficial to consult a relationship coach and make a conscious effort to spend quality one-on-one time together. This can foster intimacy and strengthen your bond.
Mutual trust, compromise, honesty, and open communication are the foundations of a healthy relationship and marriage.
Once you have started the pathway to rebuilding your relationship with yourself and each other, it is essential to use the tools provided by a professional and be hyperaware of not letting trauma creep back in.
The impact of trauma on children
Understanding how adult trauma affects children is crucial for supporting their mental and emotional wellbeing. Trauma isn’t just a personal burden, it can ripple through to the next generation, shaping their young minds and, ultimately, their future.
We know that all homes and families have periods of tension and arguments, which is not always a negative. However, a parent’s trauma can have a profound impact on how individuals parent. When adults carry unresolved trauma, it often unconsciously passes into their parenting style, affecting their emotional availability and consistency as parents.
Trauma can make parents emotionally detached. This disconnect can lead to feelings of loneliness and insecurity in children. Imagine trying to pour water from an empty cup – a parent can’t give emotional support if they are depleted.
It is crucial to be open and honest with your children, reassuring them and fostering their resilience. Strong, supportive relationships with other family members, teachers, or mentors can also make a big difference. Giving them a toolkit to manage this challenge, such as coping strategies like mindfulness and problem-solving skills, will go a long way.
Bridgette Jackson is a CDC-certified Divorce/Separation Coach with a postgraduate dispute resolution qualification. She is also a trained divorce mediator (AIMNZ), a Relationship Coach (Institute for Life Coach Training), and a member of the Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership (accredited by the ICF – International Coaching Federation). Bridgette is also a Certified Organisational Coach, Level One with IECL (Institute of Executive and Leadership Coaching) and an enrolled barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand.
Images: Supplied, Adobe Stock