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Emotional dysregulation can lead some people to experience trauma responses to non-traumatic events.

These individuals become anxious and dysregulated when required to function independently.

Codependent relationships often develop, enabling continued avoidance of daily activities.

Exposure to daily activities facilitates development of coping skills to improve functioning.

Traumatic responses to life-threatening events activate the nervous system in a unique way that focuses all attention, energy, and other resources on survival at the cost of daily function. When the threat subsides, the nervous system returns to baseline and allows for usual daily function. Some individuals respond to non-traumatic events as though they were traumatic. This results in chronic overstimulation of emergency patterns of nervous system stimulation associated with chronic neglect of daily functioning. Desensitization of trauma-level responses to non-traumatic events will result in improved daily function and a greater sense of stability.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, a traumatic event is “[e]xposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence” (APA, 2013). These are extraordinary events that are not part of........

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