SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – Money can be a considerable cause of stress during the holiday season. Whether you don’t have enough of it to do everything that you want to do, or because it leaves you and your bank account feeling depleted, you are likely just responding to trauma.

Joe Corley is a Texas-based therapist, and he says that overspending is not an act of love; it is an emotional response to trauma.

“You can’t give what you don’t have, and the fact that you want to give beyond your means is actually a trauma response. It’s a trigger,” Corley said.

He said that feeling overwhelmed, inadequate, or restricted during the holidays is a way that past trauma can inform our present and future decision-making. Gift-giving, according to Corley, should not cause feelings of fear and anxiety that your loved one will abandon you or perceive you negatively because you didn’t give them enough. Instead, giving a gift should make you feel good because it triggers the release of dopamine, creating what scientists call a “helper’s high.”

Corley said it’s challenging to make people understand how what are “normal” actions for them are actually trauma responses. He said people tend to push back, especially if the trauma response is something that has been a part of their lives since childhood. Identifying triggers by considering how situations prompt an elevated reaction is essential.

“What memories do you have around those same emotions?” Corley said the answer to that question is often found in the initial trigger and underlying cause.

Fear, he said, is usually at the heart of higher feelings of stress and depression during the holidays.