Traumatic Response to Legal-System Stress (LSS)

If you’re the center of litigation or a criminal case, you might have noticed you’re not coping with the stress as well as you might have anticipated. Being thrust into the legal system is an extraordinary source of stress, so the usual coping mechanisms won’t cut it. What you're likely experiencing is a traumatic response.

A traumatic response is the body and mind’s instinctive reaction to an event or situation that feels deeply threatening and overwhelming. Stated simply, when a person experiences severe stress, such as facing a high-stakes lawsuit or prosecution, their brain perceives the situation as an immediate threat to their survival, safety, or identity. The nervous system moves into a state of hyper-alertness.

A traumatic response tends to show up in three main ways:

1. The Nervous System Hijack

Neuroscientists tend to debate the fine details of brain function, but keeping it simple, here's what happens: The emotional center of the brain (the amygdala) takes over, bypassing the rational, logical part of the brain and triggering survival instincts. You might have heard of these:

• Fight: Manifesting as intense anger, defensiveness, or becoming argumentative with attorneys, family, friends or colleagues.

• Flight: Manifesting as avoidance, missing meetings, or completely shutting down and ignoring the legal situation.

• Freeze: Manifesting as feeling paralyzed, unable to make critical decisions, or failing to comprehend legal advice.

  
  

2. Physical Toll

Again, in laypeople's terms, the brain reacts as if it's in physical danger, flooding the body with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. This leads to physical symptoms such as chronic insomnia, a racing heart, constant exhaustion, headaches, and physical tension among many other manifestations of intense stress.

3. Psychological Fracturing

Trauma can disrupt how a person processes reality. Some people experience tunnel vision, where they fixate on the absolute worst-case scenario or one aspect of the case. Other common symptoms are extreme anxiety, memory lapses, and a deep sense of shame or isolation. There’s often a struggle to separate the legal accusation from their actual worth as a human being.

While the traumatic response is a biological survival mechanism, remaining in this state is not good for your health or your case. It’s not good for your relationships, either. 

So, What Can You Do to Mitigate Symptoms of Legal-System Stress (LSS)?

Lots of things, but here are 10 ideas to get you started:

1. Review and Focus on What You Know (not what you speculate or fear).

2. Review and Focus on What You Can Control (including things that have absolutely nothing to do with the case).

3. Separate Your Identity from the Case. Remember, you are more than the role assigned to you in a case. Embrace other roles, especially in your personal life. Make time to do the things you enjoy. Lean into healthy relationships.

4. Practice Gratitude daily. Gratitude might be the last thing on your mind, but feeling genuine gratitude changes your brain. From improved sleep to stronger relationships, making gratitude a habit yields surprising, positive results.

5. Establish Case-Free Zones. Designate places and times of day when anything case-related is off limits. Choose a room or a space in the room (kitchen table, for example) where the case is off limits. Windows of time should be far greater than the windows of time devoted to the case. 

6. Support sleep. Disrupted sleep is probably a given when involved in the legal system. Sleep is vital to your health, though, and a sleep deficit does nothing to help you reach the desired outcome of your case.

   • Your case-free zone should include at least two hours before bed. 

   • End your waking hours with gratitude. Ideally, write down what you’re thankful for. 

   • If you find that once your head hits the pillow, your mind starts racing, review all that you’re grateful for. If that doesn’t work, consider a sleep story or guided meditation. 

   • Lay Off the Sauce. Alcohol may make you feel sleepy initially, but it does not promote restorative sleep. In fact, as alcohol is metabolized, it disrupts normal sleep cycles, reduces REM sleep, and can cause lighter, fragmented sleep. It may also increase nighttime awakenings, snoring, and dehydration.

7. Avoid Sugar. Anxiety and Sugar are destructive besties.

8. Limit Screen Time. In the morning, give yourself time to wake up and have some peace before checking your phone. Put the phone in time-out for meals with family or friends. Have a dog? Take it for a walk without your face in your phone. (Take yourself for a walk without your face in your phone.) Put the phone away during your prep for bedtime, and activate sleep or DND mode.

9. Adopt grounding techniques you can use discreetly, on demand.

10. Designate an accountability partner. Ask a trusted friend, colleague, sibling, therapist, or coach to help you manage your litigation stress. (Don’t assign this role to your significant other. It’s not fair to them, especially since they’re likely dealing with secondary legal-system stress.)

If you're curious about having a coach like me as your accountability partner, you can schedule a complimentary sample session here.