 Hey Psych2goers, welcome back. Why did this happen? Whether you saw it coming or not, the feeling is the same. You're shattered. You feel like your heart is broken into multiple pieces. Life dishes out many unforeseen heartbreaks. Though the experiences may be similar, every hurt is personal. Traumatic events from your past can leave you wounded. Over time they take shape of an emotional wound itself. Like a physical wound, it's always in your awareness. You're protective and sensitive to anything that might re-injure it, and the same sensitivity often makes you even more vulnerable. Here are seven signs of an emotional wound. Let's all learn together, shall we? 1. You cry easily over small things Do you shed emotional tears along with the fictional character you're reading? Is there such a thing as crying too often or too much? Some people cry while reading a sad book or watching videos of baby animals, while others cry only at funerals. If you've ever had tears well up in a meeting or wept out loud in a movie theater, you may have wondered if it's normal. It is found that women cry on average 5.3 times per month, and men cry on average of 1.3 times per month. Tearfulness is commonly associated with depression and anxiety. This emotional state perpetuates when you've been emotionally hurt in the past. As a result, even the mere hint of anything that arouses emotions can cause tears to flow. 2. You lose interest in the things you used to enjoy At some point in their life, most people would lose interest in things that used to excite them. Emotional hurt, however, takes this loss to its limits. It becomes impossible to draw enjoyment from things that once elicited excitement. Your emotional hurt makes even pleasure seem like a task. Your world is drenched in gray and you don't seem to have the strength it takes to lift the paint brush. 3. You get annoyed easily by people's behaviors Irritability is the carbon monoxide of emotional pollutants. No one likes confrontation, but you can run from it for only so long. Anger has its own role. Both direct and indirect anger, or passive, is meant to communicate something important. What you really want is to connect and be heard. But when anger is involved, the result is often just the opposite. Aggression in any form is the biggest hindrance to emotionally intelligent communication. People often think passive-aggressive communication is somehow better or nicer. It's not. In fact, it may actually be worse. If you're looking for a true and meaningful connection and understanding with another person, you need a better strategy. Being compassionate with yourself and figuring out the source can help bring yourself down when you're feeling on edge. Be compassionate with yourself. 4. You feel worthless and hopeless How can you increase your sense of worth? Can you earn it through what you do? Happiness is not obtained solely by your achievements. Self-worth based on accomplishments is pseudo-esteem, and not the real thing. Feeling worthless often involves a sense of hopelessness and insignificance. Such feelings often arise commonly due to abuse or trauma, or difficult situations that pose a threat to a person's sense of oneself. Pim-pointing the cause behind these distorted thoughts can help you to understand and address factors that contribute to low self-esteem. 5. You keep replaying the bad memories in your head Is your head filled with one single thought? Or a string of thoughts that just keep repeating and repeating and repeating themselves? The process of continuously thinking about the same thought, which tends to be sad or dark, is called rumination. Your history of emotional or physical trauma makes you believe that by ruminating you'll gain insight into your life or a problem you're facing. As when a ball is rolling downhill, it's easier to stop the ruminating thoughts when they first start rolling and have less speed. And when they've gathered speed over time. It helps to identify your trigger and find a distraction to break your thought cycle. For example, calling a friend or family member, doing chores around the house, reading a book, or walking around your neighborhood. This helps to challenge the onslaught of thoughts. 6. You feel too much until you're numb An emotional wound can also trigger what is called apathy. Emotional hurt causes you an emotional overload to the point that you become numb. It's a form of self-defense against future hurt. Apathy is a feeling, but it's also an attitude. And sadly, the attitude is one of indifference, unconcern, unresponsiveness, detachment and dispassion. Emotional hurt saps you of so much energy that you feel listless, almost too paralyzed to act, and certainly without the will to do so. This is why apathetic individuals are easily identified by their passivity. Your interest in confronting life's challenges is seriously compromised, you just don't care anymore. To defeat this stagnancy within, you must be willing to commit to giving this apathy the fight of its life. Even though doing so feels like it will take a lot more energy and effort than you're capable of. 7. You feel clueless and stuck Ever had times when you feel trapped or restless? Where the life you're living doesn't seem anything like the life you wanted. As if on autopilot, going through the motions but feeling unsatisfied? Your instincts are to shake it up, change your job or go on that vacation. But that provides only a temporary, not permanent solution. Instead, the solution lies within. Topping up your ways of thinking about events can actually help lead to new perspectives and diminish distress and anxiety. It's important to do away with your negative perceptions about yourself that interfere with problem solving. If you found this video helpful, be sure to hit the like button and share it with those out there who need to hear this. Don't forget to subscribe to Psych2Go and hit the notification bell for more new videos. And as always, thanks for watching.