Like when psychologists talk about repression is that mostly during early years? Or does that happen to adults like in their 20s and beyond?
In: Biology
The trauma doesn’t have to be from childhood; there are parts of my 30’s I’ve blocked out. It’s also possible to develop PTSD at any age.
so, repressing memories is actually just a part of dissociation. the act of dissociation in response to trauma, can sometimes lead to forgetting the memory “entirely” (or rather practically in your day to day life). this is a defense mechanism for the brain of course, and dissociation can happen any time in life thus, so can repressing trauma. however kids do have the tendency to do it more, as their natural flight or fight isnt there to help them, as fighting nor flight is possible in alot of cases. so when they “freeze” they are more likely to dissociate to cope and exist as best as they can for survival.
I’ve read The Body Keeps Score
ELI5: remember when that movie had a scary part? You covered your eyes? You still saw a bit and heard a bit to know it was scary, but can’t remember what exactly happened.
Non ELI5: trauma is when the brain ‘thinks’ it’s going to be annihilated. Not killed or injured, but full on wiped from existence. That definition is different for every brain, like a life saving surgery could be traumatic.
We don’t really have control over it, but the brain will default to one of four defense mechanisms:
Fight: I’m gonna die, might as well try and take the threat with me
Flee: every bit of energy in my body is now directed to running away
Freeze: I am essentially going to play dead, and prepare my body to die
Fawn: I will give the threat what I want
The brain shutting off, is kinda like “hey this is gonna get real ugly, don’t look” like the scary movie example. It’s why memories become fragmented in a traumatic event.
In the scary movie example you didn’t necessarily see the bad scene but you heard a gross crunch and now when you hear a similar sound, it takes you back to that scary scene.
Ditto for headlights coming at you, certain smells, etc.
Also.. trauma fucks you up, even if you don’t remember the event that’s not exactly a blessing. The body could become hyper vigilant, where you’re constantly looking for threats and your nervous system never relaxes. Or you could develop inflammatory issues where the immune system is beating the shit out of every invader including shit that should be helping your body.
There are many ways to address trauma, one popular method at the moment is EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing)
Your brain is.. pleasantly distracted by certain stimuli a moving light is common, while you have a therapy session and the traumatic event is reconstructed into a memory that you can then safely process.
Imagine you were telling the plot to a scary movie while playing Tetris. You could do it, but you’d be detached and not necessarily driving the horror home but the person you’re telling would get like 70% of the overall plot enough to feel like they’d “seen” it.
It’d be like going back and watching that scary scene but with the lights on and your parents there assuring you it’s all a movie. It loses A LOT of it’s power on that setting.
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