This was a long section, but it is important to know some of the parts of the brain, how they talk with each other and store information so we can understand how these relationships are changed during stress and trauma.
The brain is designed to take in information from our five senses. This information is then rated in importance and stored first as a short term memory, then converted to midterm and later as a long term memory. At the same time we act on these stimuli by responding in speech and with action.
A ball player learns where to run in order to catch or kick a ball. A Pianist learns how to move her fingers and arms in order to produce beautiful music. A writer learns how to arrange words in order to persuade others. These are all very complicated responses taking the instantaneous coordination of input, memories, thought and muscle.
We are very complicated creatures designed by our Lord God to act and react in this world to a variety of stimuli and to respond to Him through faith. We are built far beyond the input / output of a computer or machine.
A person suffering from a traumatic emotional injury, which by the way is a physical brain injury, will be out of sync. these people seem “flakey”, “timid” they are not “all there”.
I recently had a conversation with a nurse from EEG. He informed me that the protocol for determining if a person is suffering from a brain trauma is no longer “Can you answer the questions” but “How long does it take to answer the questions” If you take a longer time to answer questions after an injury than before, this is the brain rerouting a path around the injured area.
In the next section, where we discuss the various levels of trauma, we will learn the brain has both a defense mechanism to protect us from overload, and a way of responding to this overload. At the same time, we can go into the differences between male and female to learn how vastly different a man and woman is made.
Later, I hope someone investigates the different ways a man and woman responds to the stresses of trauma. This would be a fantastic section as the differences between men and women are so profound. Exploring the physiological and psychological reactions should be another page of this site and I hope someone investigates this soon.
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What are the Degrees of Trauma?