TRAUMA MAPPING

Attachment researchers have shown that our earliest caregivers don’t only feed us, dress, and comfort us when we are upset; they shape the way our rapidly growing brain perceives the world, a mapping of our experiences so to speak.  That does not mean, however, that our maps cannot be modified or further distorted by future experience.  A deep love relationship during adolescence, for example, can transform us.  So too can the rejection of your lover’s family further distort our map of the world.  This rejection can lead you to believe or feed into what you already believe that you are not good enough.  You can walk through life with these maps and not even know it.  These maps of the world are encoded in the emotional brain; and changing them means having to reorganize that part of the central nervous system.

These maps of the world cause people to not talk, but rather to act and deal with their feelings by being enraged, shut down, compliant, or defiant.  Van Der Kolk says, “they are programmed to be fundamentally loyal to their caretakers even if they are abused by them.”  However, when you can only direct this rage at yourself, it comes out as depression, self-hatred, and self-destructiveness.