Psychological trauma, mental trauma or psychotrauma is an emotional response to a distressing event or series of events, such as accidents, rape, or natural disasters. Reactions such as psychological shock and psychological denial are typical. Longer-term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, difficulties with interpersonal relationships and sometimes physical symptoms including headaches or nausea. Trauma is not the same as mental distress or suffering, both of which are universal human experiences. Given that subjective experiences differ between individuals, people will react to similar events differently. In other words, not all people who experience a potentially traumatic event will actually become psychologically traumatized (although they may be distressed and experience suffering). Some people will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after being exposed to a major traumatic event (or series of events). This discrepancy in risk rate can be attributed to protective factors some individuals may have that enable them to cope with difficult events, including temperamental and environmental factors (such as resilience and willingness to seek help). Signs and symptoms People who go through extremely traumatizing experiences often have problems and difficulties afterwards. The severity of these symptoms depends on the person, the types of trauma involved, and the emotional support they receive from others. The range of reactions to trauma can be wide and varied, and differ in severity from person to person. After a traumatic experience, a person may re-experience the trauma mentally and physically. For example, the sound of a motorcycle engine may cause intrusive thoughts or a sense of re-experiencing a traumatic experience that involved a similar sound (e.g., gunfire). Sometimes a benign stimulus (e.g., noise from a motorcycle) may get connected in the mind with the traumatic experience. This process is called traumatic coupling. In this process, the benign stimulus becomes a trauma reminder, also called a trauma trigger. These can produce uncomfortable and even painful feelings. Re-experiencing can damage people's sense of safety, self, self-efficacy, as well as their ability to regulate emotions and navigate relationships. They may turn to psychoactive substances including alcohol to try to escape or dampen the feelings. These triggers cause flashbacks, which are dissociative experiences where the person feels as though the events are recurring. Flashbacks can range from distraction to complete dissociation or loss of awareness of the current context. Re-experiencing of symptoms is a sign that the body and mind are actively struggling to cope with the traumatic experience.