Teens and Trauma

If you'd like to explore more about your personal traumas and how you tract to them, take the WAY2GO! Wellness Assessment. Upon completion you will receive a report detailing what's healthy in your life and what could use some work and you'll have an even better idea of what tools to use from this teen trauma site.

This site is intended as a self-help tool for teens who have experienced any kind of trauma, including:

• Violence
• Accidents
• Physical assault
• Sexual assault
• Natural disasters
• Loss of a loved one or grief

Some traumatic events happen once and involve an injury or threat of injury to yourself, friends or loved ones. These experiences may induce overwhelming feelings of terror or helplessness.

Other traumas can happen repeatedly over long periods of time. They generate feelings of guilt, anxiety about or shame. You can be involved, or just witness something and still be traumatized by it.

This reaction is called traumatic stress. These reactions can last a long time after the event is over.

In this site, we provide information to help teens manage traumatic stress. It is not a replacement for counseling. You need face-to-face support to deal with the distress that accompanies living through a tragedy or trauma.

Please talk to your doctor and get support from a person trained to assist people recovering from trauma. If you avoid dealing with your reactions, you could start experiencing problems in relationships, work, and school, long after the traumatic event ends.

Page last reviewed July 2011, Dr. Nancy Brown and Shelley Kind