TRAUMA BRAIN

It has been found that human trauma is experienced in fragments of sounds, images and feelings and not as entire stories.  That is why we often hear of people not remembering what has happened to them until some sound, image, etc. triggered them.  Even then, the memory comes to them very fragmented and people tend to not believe fragmented stories, thus traumatizing this person all over again.  It has been found that the brains of trauma victims are not necessarily different than stroke victims brains, in that in both brains very similar lesions can be found that impairs them both.  This is also a contributor to the fragmentation that is experienced when trying to remember what happened to the trauma victim.  Because we have no idea what is going on with us and we want to appear “normal” in society, Van Der Kolk says we come up with a “cover story” that somewhat explains our symptoms and behaviors for public consumption. 

What should be known is that when something triggers our memory of a traumatized past, Van Der Kolk says that “the right brain reacts as if the traumatic event were happening in the present.”  But, because our left brains are not fully functioning in this reenactment, we are usually not aware that we are reliving our traumatic past.  So what seems like an unreasonable response to those outside of us, seems very reasonable to our brains as it is experiencing that trauma as it was happening right now and the person in front of them is the traumatizer. 

What do you think about that?