Trauma Memories
/“We remember trauma less in words and more with our feelings and our bodies.”
Trauma occurs when a person experiences an event or series of events that overwhelms the brain’s ability to cope. It can range from car accidents, unexpected death of a loved one, assault, witnessing violence, betrayal or any form of child abuse. The details vary but the trauma puts a person in a state of shock with adaptive responses that create rippling effects in the person’s life.
When a person experiences a trauma, the memory of the event is stored as thoughts, emotions, body feelings and spiritual impressions. Interestingly, over time, we may forget and confuse the order of events. This occurs because our brain reverts to survival mode at the moment of shock. The brain prioritizes essential activities for survival. In fact, brain imaging studies show increased activation in the survival portion of our brain and far less activity in the logical, sequencing portion during periods of stress and fear.
This means that a victim of an assault, for example, is likely to remember the way their body felt, visceral smells and sensations and the feelings of shock. They are unlikely to remember the sequence of events, shirt color of their attacker or the amount of time they waited before calling for help.
For many, this is confusing. Those that have not experienced sudden trauma cannot understand how a person could go through something so significant and forget key details. However, we can focus what the survivor does remember. A statistically insignificant portion of trauma survivors lie about their experience. They may simply be unable to report with clarity or consistency because of the state of shock their mind and body experienced during the event.
For children, this is particularly true. Children that have experienced significant abuse or trauma will often have very confused memories in part because they may not even have words what they have experienced. They also fear going back to those memories and feeling again the sensations and feelings they had at the time of trauma. Another common coping strategy for children is to block the memory of the event as an adaptive strategy. Many children find it easier to adapt and continue forward if they completely block their memories.
At unexpected times, triggering feelings or circumstances will bring partial memories to the surface. Interestingly, the most consistent and reliable memories tend to be the body memories from trauma. My personal experience involved triggers of fear, shame or panic for over 25 years before my memories began to form a cohesive whole. This cohesion was possible because of my willingness to feel the fear, shame and panic and see what was beyond that. Before leaning into the feelings to understand them, my initial response was to run at top speed in the opposite direction. As I leaned into my feelings with an open heart and an open mind and listened to my body and the things she remembered, I was able to reclaim the truth of my experience one puzzle piece at a time.
What is the point of leaning in to the memory to understand truth? I believe that seeing the whole truth and validating the experience my body and brain remembered was essential to my trauma healing. When I chose not to ignore and tolerate triggering panic I was led to true peaceful wholeness. The healing that comes from being whole within myself. This wholeness empowers me to live in truth with an open heart. Holding no fear, shame or panic. This my friends is what trauma work is all about.