A traumatic event is an experience that the brain perceives as dangerous or a threat to life. Trauma is held in the body and shows itself in a multitude of ways including:

• spiraling thoughts

• wondering if you’re good enough or worthy

• trouble sleeping or sleeping too much

• panic attacks

• feeling stiff

• trouble with memory

…and the list goes on. No matter the event, what makes it traumatic is the difficulty of staying present, understanding what’s happening, processing the experience, and knowing the experience is finished. This is why when people say “but it happened so long ago”, it doesn’t matter: because trauma does not have a timeline.

 

The Trauma Brain

What happens to the brain when there is a real or perceived threat of danger? We have different parts to the brain: the Thinking Center, Fire Alarm, Emotional Brain, and the Instinctive Part. On a normal day-to-day, the Thinking Center is at the steering wheel of the car (the body). When the brain gets the message there is danger, the Thinking Center takes a back seat as the Fire Alarm takes over the steering wheel. During this time, the Fire Alarm and the Instinctive Part drive the body while the Thinking Center takes cover in the back seat. When the danger isn’t sensed anymore, it tells the Thinking Center to return to the steering wheel, returning to normal functioning. However, in someone with post-traumatic stress, the Fire Alarm remains on high activation and causes the Thinking Center to stay in the back seat so the person can’t realize the real or perceived threat has ended.

 

Brain and Body

Depending on the experience of the trauma or if the person has repeated trauma, the brain is on high alert and has difficulty processing everyday experiences, let alone the trauma. And since the trauma doesn’t get processed along with stressors that may remind the person of the trauma, it gets stored in the body. This is called implicit memory and means the body then reacts with symptoms like chronic pain, nausea, feeling disconnected, like you’re “in your head”, to name a few. Trauma becomes a disorder when these responses and the responses listed above get in the way of day-to-day functioning.