How do childhood memories cause trauma if you can’t remember them?
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Because trauma affects the type and amount of stress hormones being released into the body. These stress hormones, especially if trauma exposure persists, “rewires” the brain. It causes the amygdala (primal instincts and fear responses) to increase in size and capacity while the frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex (logic and reason) shrink. The more trauma exposure, the harder “wired” the brain becomes for trauma/fear response. In short, trauma affects the way the brain develops. I can give you the entire run down of which hormones are released by which parts of the brain and what systems they’re affecting and in what way….but I thought that might be over the top for an ELI5 post. It has nothing to do with memory (or even emotion as an ethereal concept), and everything to do with biology and brain architecture. I hope this very minimal description makes sense.
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