This post takes a non-flinching look at the effects of trauma, including personal details of my life, as well as biological explanations for understanding how trauma keeps one stuck to help people move forward from their traumatic pasts.
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When I was writing the personal essay for my college applications, the only thing I could think about was informing my potential universities that I had recently been raped. Faced with prompts asking me to describe myself and my life, as well as prove why I was worthy to attend the institutions, all I could consider saying was that I had been violated. I intended this in part as a warning, but also as a qualifier.
As a prospective writer, I wanted the schools to know that I had the illusion of my glossy suburban town shattered, and I was ready to cut to the marrow of life. At the same time, it was simply impossible for me to separate what happened to me from who I then thought of myself as. More than a decade later, I relay this story not because I think of myself as someone who was raped, but because I want people to know that it would now never cross my mind to answer a question of who I am with such an answer.
If you were to ask me today who I am, I might tell you a writer, an artist, a wife, a content marketer, a cinephile, an animal lover, a German immigrant, or an American citizen. I would relay a colorful array of hobbies and interests and titles that I have created for myself. This is because my identity is no longer inextricably wound in my trauma even though it has left lasting imprints on my life and the person I became.
Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for trauma to become a part of one’s identity. In fact, trauma can keep a person so rooted in the past that find themselves unable to proceed with their lives. Though years might elapse, trauma survivors are often plagued by memories of the event. They can become so immersed in it that they might relive the horror habitually and find themselves unable to rebuild in the wake of the attack or envision any version of a future.
I believe (and can personally testify) that in order to create a new narrative for oneself, it is first necessary to understand trauma. That’s why I want to examine the impact of trauma on the body and mind before we try to find a way out from the never-ending loop.
Can Trauma Keep You Stuck?
In a 2022 article, Psych Central explored the phenomenon of a trauma survivor becoming “stuck” at the age they experienced their trauma. The publication revealed that people who experienced trauma as a child might become emotionally delayed, as they remain rooted in the age of the event. For example, the person might age into adulthood but still resort to childish coping mechanisms such as tantrums and uncontrolled outbursts because they never emotionally matured. This phenomenon is known as attested psychological development.
Although trauma is not unique because it hardly ever occurs, it is noticeable for the extreme impact it has on a person mentally, physically, and some might say spiritually. Trauma is such an overwhelming experience that it can disrupt the body’s ability to properly function and thus develop. This leaves the person rooted in the moment of their event, as their bodies essentially freeze when faced with an emotional response that they are unequipped to process.
As Psych Central explores, age regression occurs due to the trauma being insufficiently processed on a neurobiological level. This results in the brain being rewired, which causes thought patterns and subsequent behavior responses to be altered and maladapted as a person ages. Essentially, unprocessed trauma remains in the body and will continue to disrupt one’s life if it is not adequately dealt with. This might manifest in age regression, emotional numbness, or a maladapted ability to regulate one’s feelings.
Understanding Trauma & Memory
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIH) estimates that approximately 3.6% of U.S. adults had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the year of the study. PTSD can occur after one is exposed to something potentially traumatizing and can lead to plaguing events such as intrusive memories, panic attacks, and insomnia as one is forced to repeatedly relive their trauma. In such instances, trauma can severely impact the timeline of one’s life and cause a person to believe they are still experiencing the traumatic incident in the most symptomatic cases.
Furthermore, The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (NICABM) revealed that trauma impacts four different types of memory including semantic, episodic, emotional, and procedural. People who have experienced trauma might feel as though they are unable to process things properly or find they often forget areas of their lives. Additionally, many trauma survivors lack the ability to reconstruct their lives as a linear narrative, as they instead view their past in disjointed episodic occurrences that likely lack relationships with each other.
The Four Areas Of Memory Impacted By Trauma (NICABM)
Semantic Memory: refers to the ability to remember general knowledge and facts. Trauma can prevent the ability of information, -such as words, images, and sounds- from different areas of the brain to join together and form semantic memory. This occurs in the temporal lobe and inferior parietal lobe.
Episodic Memory: refers to autobiographical memory, such as the who, what, and where of an event. Episodic memory can be completely shut down by trauma, leaving the past feeling fragmented and disjointed. This occurs in the hippocampus
Emotional Memory: recalls the way a person felt during a specific experience. Trauma survivors might become unexpectedly triggered and reveal extreme emotional outbursts at unexpected moments. The amygdala is primarily responsible for this occurrence.
Procedural Memory: refers to the automatic ability to perform common tasks, such as riding a bike, without needing to recall it. Trauma can affect these once basic capabilities, such as by causing a person’s body to become chronically tense and unable to relax. This occurs in the striatum.
Rebuilding After Trauma
Trauma is so powerful that it disrupts the body’s processing system. However, just as a system can be interrupted, it can also be set back on track. Many trauma survivors turn to healing methods such as cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) to learn how to rewire their brains and develop more mature and healthy emotional responses. By identifying maladaptive coping mechanisms and problematic reactions, trauma survivors can learn how to rewire their brains and form healthy responses that eventually become ingrained patterns.
People who fear that trauma recovery is hopeless must consider that they weren’t born with their maladapted coping mechanisms; these likely arose as a response to trauma and their body’s insufficient ability to process it. Therefore, it is absolutely possible to construct corrective behaviors that make trauma bearable. It requires persistence when it comes to reworking the brain, however, as many trauma responses have been reinforced through years of repetition.
The American Psychological Association (APA) also recommends specific therapies for trauma healing and reprocessing. These include CBT, cognitive processing therapy (CPT), prolonged exposure (PE) therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EDMR) therapy, narrative exposure therapy, somatic therapies, and mindfulness-based therapies. Additionally, some people rely on a combination of medications and therapies to help bring them out of the haze of depression and PTSD that many trauma survivors experience.
Closing Thoughts (Hope After Trauma)
While I am a writer and not a doctor, as a trauma survivor with a personal passion for discussing this theme, I hope I can relay the truth that it is possible to rebuild after trauma. For me, and perhaps all survivors of trauma, there is a before and an after. Though you can never have the life you had before once a trauma has occurred, the life you build after can be brimming with joy, productivity, and prosperity. Once you accept and recognize the loss (a hefty feat that I am condensing into a single sentence), this possibility will turn into more of a reality every day.
I chose to reveal my own past in this post not because I want it to define me, but in the hopes that the reader can realize I have become so much more than the sum of the things that have happened to me. My past, as evidenced by my posts, has been filled with violence and trauma. But I consider myself a well-adjusted, resilient, courageous, infrangible human being with a flourishing life brimming with a beautiful home, wonderful husband, amazing job, and beloved family and friends. I say these things not to brag, but because they are all aspects of life I never thought would be possible for myself a decade ago.
I won’t sugar-coat it: trauma recovery is heart-achingly painful. It requires grit, determination, and will. But it is very much possible to have a future after tragedy, even if that future is achieved day by day without a clear vision in sight. Persistence is key to the eventual materialization of something tangible.
And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars.
Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron
Continued Reading: Can A New Therapy Repair Identity After Trauma