Why Trauma Affects Some People More Than Others: 4 Key Factors

Written by Roland Bal

Some people go through a traumatic event and come out largely intact. Others suffer for years. Why?

"Trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside you, as a result of what happens to you." — Dr. Gabor Maté

A very true statement. But what does it actually mean? It means that the event itself is only part of the story. What makes trauma stick is what happens inside the nervous system — and that is shaped by four specific factors.

The 4 Factors That Determine Whether Trauma Sticks

Whether you are traumatized — or re-traumatized — by an event depends largely on these four things:

• How you go into a traumatic event.
• The duration and severity of the traumatic event.
• The support, or lack of support, you receive during or after the event.
• Whether you were able to move your energy into fight or flight while going through it.

Let's look at each one.

1. How You Go Into the Event

If you have a history of childhood trauma, your resilience and your ability to respond with a healthy fight or flight reaction will already be impacted. The nervous system you bring into a new event is the one that was shaped by what came before. A nervous system already braced from earlier dysregulation has less capacity left for a new shock.

This is why two people in the same car accident can walk away with very different outcomes. The one whose system was already on edge — already over-recruited from earlier life — has less reserve to absorb and recover. New trauma lands on top of old trauma, and the impact compounds.

2. Duration and Severity

The longer a traumatic situation continues and wears down your energy and resources, the harder it becomes to find a way to regulate yourself or escape. Your survival strategies and coping mechanisms become more complex, compounded, and ingrained.

A single overwhelming event is different from years of chronic stress. A car accident is processed differently than an emotionally abusive childhood. Both can be deeply traumatic, but prolonged exposure changes the nervous system at a structural level — the survival response becomes the default, and the body forgets what baseline ever felt like.

3. The Presence or Absence of Support

If you do not have a support person — someone safe to be with — during or after a stressful or traumatic event, you are far more likely to dissociate more severely, and shutdown or depression becomes more common. Lack of support is itself a trauma multiplier.

4. Whether Fight or Flight Could Complete

This is the one most people miss. Referring back to Gabor Maté's statement, if you were able to activate yourself during the event and move your energy into fight or flight — actually mobilising — you significantly reduce the long-term impact of the trauma.

The impact of trauma, what happens inside of you, comes down to the ability to act, or the inability to act. When fight or flight cannot complete — when the body could not run, could not push back, could not do anything except freeze or comply — that interrupted response is what gets locked in. The energy that was meant to discharge stays inside. That is the main contributor to retraumatization, and it is what somatic work later has to address.

What This Means for Recovery

Many people start from a disadvantage. They had no support. They suffered childhood trauma. They were exposed to prolonged trauma. They froze when the body wanted to fight or flee. Does this mean that all is lost?

No.

Through specific guided meditations, somatic work, or trauma-informed therapy, those interrupted survival responses can still be completed. The nervous system can be brought back into regulation. The factors that made trauma stick in the first place can be addressed, one by one — the missing support can be built now, the incomplete fight or flight can finish in the body, the dysregulation can settle.

It takes work and persistence. But it can be done.