The Anxiety of Waiting For the Other Shoe to Drop Due to Unresolved Trauma

A history of unresolved trauma can affect your outlook on life (see my article: How Trauma Therapy Can Help You to Overcome Unresolved Trauma).

Even when people, who had childhood trauma, overcome adversity and they are no longer struggling under traumatic circumstances in their current life, they can often experience anticipatory anxiety about the future--like they're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Unresolved Trauma and Anxiety

Many people who haven't had a traumatic childhood can experience this type of anticipatory anxiety after dealing with trauma in adulthood.

Clinical Vignettes

The following clinical vignettes, which are composite cases to protect confidentiality, illustrate how unresolved trauma can create a sense of anticipatory anxiety and foreboding about the future--like waiting for the other shoe to drop:

Sara: Unresolved Trauma and Anxiety

• Sara: When Sara was seven years old, her father's job loss plunged the family into dire financial straits. While her father looked for work, her mother took three jobs just to meet the family's basic needs. Her parents had so much shame about their financial situation that they made Sara promise not to talk about it with anyone outside their immediate family. It took her father two years to find another job that could support the family and, eventually, they were financially stable again. But Sara was profoundly affected by these childhood experiences. As an adult, she had a persistent sense that, at any moment, her circumstances could change and she could experience financial ruin. When her company began layoffs, even though she was assured by her manager that she would be spared, she became so anxious that she sought help in therapy to overcome her anxiety and unresolved trauma (see my article: Why is Unresolved Trauma From the Past Affecting You Now?)

John: Unresolved Trauma and Anxiety

• John: John sought help in therapy after he was treated for prostate cancer. Even though his doctor assured him that he had an excellent chance of living a long healthy life after John was cancer free for two years, John had persistent anxiety about the possibility of the cancer coming back or that he would experience another serious medical problem. Prior to his cancer diagnosis, John had experienced episodes of anxiety whenever he had to make major changes in his life. With regard to his family history, he told his therapist that his mother was an extremely anxious person due to her own unresolved childhood trauma. His mother had a terrible sense of foreboding whenever the family encountered even the possibility of change. When John's father was told his company might relocate down South, his father and mother knew they didn't want to move out of New York City,  so he began looking for another job immediately. John's father wasn't worried about finding a comparable job because he was a much sought after professional. But John's mother became so anxious because she recalled her own family's need to flee from a fascist regime.  Her sense of worry made her sick. Fortunately, the father was able to find another job at a higher paying salary within a relatively short period of time. But the mother continued to experience persistent bouts of anxiety and foreboding. While he was in therapy, John learned the connection between his anxiety and his mother's unresolved trauma (see my article: What is Intergenerational Trauma?).

Ellen: Unresolved Trauma and Anxiety

• Ellen: After Ellen's best friend, Alice, died suddenly from natural causes, Ellen felt like her world was completely shaken. She had never lost anyone close to her and Ellen felt existential dread about the possibility of her own death. Prior to Alice's death, Ellen would have occasional worries about death--even though Ellen was in excellent health. Although she had other close friends, Ellen felt lost without Alice, who had been her best friend since they were in elementary school. After listening to Ellen talk about her grief and her anxiety for a few months, her friends became impatient with her and told her she needed to "move on." But Alice didn't know how to move on. She didn't even know how to mourn. When Ellen sought help in therapy, she told her therapist she had a great childhood, she had loving parents, she had a loving husband and two wonderful adult children. There was no prior trauma in her history that seemed to be getting triggered. Her feeling that any moment the other shoe would drop was related to the loss of Alice, so her therapist helped Ellen to grieve and Ellen felt comfort in being able to process her loss in therapy without any of the judgment she experienced with her friends. After she completed therapy, Ellen felt she had the usual concerns that middle age people have about death, but her concerns didn't feel as catastrophic as they had been when Alice first died. Even though she felt better, she realized that she was forever changed by the loss of her best friend. But with help from her therapist, Ellen began to look forward to upcoming events in her life in a way she wasn't able to do immediately after Alice's death (see my article: Allowing Room For Grief).

Conclusion

In each of the composite vignettes the clients were affected by past or recent unresolved trauma so that they were apprehensive--even when it was clear that there was no need to worry about their current situation.

Traumatic events can create feelings of anticipatory anxiety and foreboding--even when a person's logical mind tells them that there seems to be no apparent reason for these feelings under their present circumstances.

Even though these experiences are common, people who have never experienced anything like this before might not understand. 

Well-meaning friends and family might tell you to "just get over it" or to "move on" and when you can't "move on", they might be surprised or even judgmental. 

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

If you have unresolved trauma that causes you to experience feelings of anxiety and foreboding, you could benefit from working with a trauma therapist (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

A skilled trauma therapist can help you to work through unresolved trauma using therapy modalities specifically designed to help clients overcome trauma.

These modalities include (but are not limited to):

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

• Somatic Experiencing (also known as S.E.)

• Parts Work Therapy (including IFS and Ego States Therapy)

• Hypnotherapy (also known as Clinical Hypnosis)

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from an experienced trauma therapist so you  can overcome trauma and lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Parts Work, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experiencing helping individual adults and couples to overcome trauma.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742- 2624 during business hours or email me.