Profound Trauma (Vegetative vagal/parasympathetic shut down.) If the impersonal terror or rage condition lasts very long the next stage is to completely shut down. This nervous breakdown becomes a vacant stare called dissociation. While the brain continues to respond in minimal ways it may no longer recognize the present or events that are happening. An immature brain, or one without experiential capacity may not be able to consciously recall this experience when the cortex starts to operate again.
I do not know if my trauma went this deep. But then few people are aware of and able to recall any “blackout”.
A friend of mine suffering from PTSD was having a hard week. His job was stressful and he found himself blowing up, snapping at customers and quitting. I explained that this was a good thing. The brain was trying to sort things out. It’s part of the healing process.
When we are overwhelmed with emotion, when we are not prepared, the brain does not know how to handle the emotions or where to store the memories. Nothing like this ever happened before. It stores intense memories any ol’ place until it can get things sorted out. This is why we have intense and disjointed memories.
When he became stressed at work, the brain said, “I remember being stressed like this before, let’s go see how I handled this in the past.” So the brain looks it up. Does not find a time stamp nor a resolution. The entire memory may be reviewed in a quick flashback. Then the memories get jumbled together because they were never stored properly nor in chronological order.
He told me that he did not have a very good memory. I asked if he had had a good memory before Afghanistan. He told me that he had a very good memory, won all sorts of prizes for the memory games he played. This is consistent with this level of trauma.
He then wrote me telling me that he figured out his triggers. “Intense situations where I do not have a clear definition of what to do. The less clear, the more stress I feel and more likely I am to panic.”
This is important. The trauma overwhelming us may not be the direct event. Here, it was not the killing, the friends dying, or whatever else happened. It was the lack of solution. For me it was not the rape, it was the abandonment by the one I loved with no explanation. Discovering the triggers leads us to discover the real problem.
When the brain is stressed, it compares the new stressors to the old stressors. Again there is no chronology to these. This is why we cannot tell past, present or future. Until the brain sorts things out and tags memories with chronology, memories will keep getting confused. Haunting us when we are stressed.
In another section I mention “old memories and new ways of thinking about them consume your day.” This is the way our brain sorts itself out. The brain must sort these memories and place them in the proper cortex. This happens as we mature in our Emotional Quotient (EQ).
An interesting point: My friend mentioned he could not watch war movies. However, if he saw an old war movie that he had seen before Afghanistan, he had no flashbacks. Can you guess why?
Could it be that before he was traumatized in Afghanistan, he saw movies without the emotional overload? These films were already stored in a proper location. When he looks at the old films, there is no trauma involved: even when he watches the same types of scenes. These memories are already safely stored. Therefore, no trauma, no need to recall the disjointed memories.
By the way, having neared the end of writing this book, I suddenly realize that I am no longer consumed with reliving these memories. I do not remember the last time reliving the event consumed my day the way it had. I notice also, I am able to research details I was not able to previously comprehend and that my vocabulary has returned and increased.
Chronic Trauma