A traumatic event can often leave you feeling that:

• something sudden, unexpected and terrible has happened to you
• something very threatening, scary or frightening has happened
• while the events were happening, you may have felt that serious harm or even death may be how it would all end up
• the bad things that have happened were very hard for you to avoid
• the things that happened made you feel quite helpless
• the things that have happened are not the sorts of things that you should have to live through in normal life.

Because the trauma has been sudden, unexpected and violent and because the trauma caused terrible feelings of helplessness, it is very common for you to experience some normal emotional reactions.

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