Memory Of Trauma

Traumatic events often threaten the effectiveness of the brain’s ability to function correctly in everyday life. Events of the sort can become harmful to the brain, which, in turn, negatively affects the body. Trauma can be defined as a deeply distressing, upsetting, or disturbing experience (Collins English Dictionary). At least 70 percent of Americans have suffered through a traumatic event in their lifetime, although, around only 20 percent of them have developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in which a person suffers in response to a traumatic event for a prolonged period (“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Fact Sheet”). This paper will address the longevity of these effects on the brain as well as the effects on the physical well-being of the body and seeking to which aspect proves to be more harmful overall.

Judith Herman, a psychiatric researcher, states in her book, Trauma and Recovery, “the conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.” (Herman 1) She captures the two main schools of thought existing regarding the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Some advocate the act of recounting the traumatic events, while others do not consider this to have therapeutic benefits. This divide was seen in World War 1 and the treatment of shell shock patients and is still seen today. In this paper, the presence of storytelling and lack thereof in traumatic shock treatment from WWI onward will be observed.

Post-traumatic disorder (PTSD) is one of the leading mental issues in the world right now. It includes introduction to injury including passing or the danger of death, genuine damage, or sexual brutality. Something is traumatic when it is exceptionally startling, overpowering and causes a considerable measure of pain. Injury is regularly sudden, and numerous individuals say that they felt feeble to stop or change the occasion. Traumatic occasions might incorporate wrongdoings, common fiascos, mishaps, war or strife, or different dangers to life. It could be an occasion or circumstance that one encounters or something that transpires, including friends and family. The post-traumatic stress is not subject to any definite experience a priori,

Van Der Kolk parallels his experience of having five different stories to the memory of a trauma by explaining “but what is so extraordinary about trauma, is that these images or sounds or physical sensations don’t change over time. So people who have been molested as kids continue to see the wallpaper of the room in which they were molested. Or when they examine all these priest-abused victims, they keep seeing the silhouette of the priest standing in the door of the bathroom and stuff like that. So it’s these images, these sounds, that don’t get changed. So it’s normal to change” (Tippett, 2014). While I have heard of flashbulb memories, in which someone can have a memory that seems so clear, I never knew how clear trauma can be recognized as well. Dr. Van Der Kolk explains in this quote how easy it is for a child to continue to be traumatized by the little reminders because they have such an accurate account of the memory. He then prefaces that it is healthy to change in this sense so people can heal in trauma. I thought this was interesting because although I had some idea that trauma would leave triggers, I had never received an explanation as to

Traumatic events also produce profound and lasting changes in physiological arousal, emotion, cognition, and memory. Moreover, traumatic events may result in the severance of these normally integrated functions from one another. Traumatized individuals may also suffer from the memories of the tragic or horrifying experiences they have undergone. Frequently, as a result of these many symptoms, it becomes inevitable for the individual to develop certain complications associated with trauma-related disorders, such as posttraumatic stress disorder.

A child who is under the age of puberty is lacking the chemicals in the brain to see the whole picture and make decisions so the wounds that happen in childhood, a time during which the child does not have the capacity to understand, trigger responses not based on the whole picture of the event just happened, it is based on the adrenaline of the events and the relationship of the current event to previous events and trauma stored in the brain. Once a child is traumatized, the child will be more vulnerable to perceiving future events as trauma. In the bible Paul says, “We are not to cast down arguments or strongholds and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bring every thought into captivity and to the obedience

Alhough individuals respond differently to traumatic incidents, going through a traumatic event where a death or mutiple deaths occur, can result in guilt and symptoms that are detrimental to the individual. Though many individuals experiences to traumatic incidents

Frequently, as humans, we are faced with traumatic memories and experiences that prove to

Traumatizing events are happening all over the world, and are being caused by pitiless gang

Post-traumatic amnesia is confusion or memory loss that occurs immediately following a traumatic brain injury. The person that was injured is usually disoriented and is unable to remember the events that occur after the injury like their name, where they are, and the time. They may experience retrograde amnesia (loss of memories that were formed before the injury) and retrograde amnesia (problems with creating new memories). They may regain their memory. When they experience anterograde amnesia they memories are never regained because they were not encoded completely. Memories from just before the trauma are often gone forever, due to repression, also because the memories may be incompletely encoded, if the injury interrupts the encoding

Re-experiencing an event occurs in different ways. First, a person may have disturbing recollections of the traumatic event consciously while awake or unconsciously in a dream state. Other events may occur to trigger symptoms and the affected person may dissociate while reliving the traumatic moment or moments. The layman’s term, “flashback”, defines the common re-experiencing event where a person feels as though he or she is reliving the trauma (Kulkarni et al., 2011; Norman, 2000; Owens, Baker, Kasckow, Ciesla & Mohamed, 2005).

Morris states that PTSD is often thought of as being a syndrome of remembering things too well. He adds that “the ones who ‘forget,’ they suffer later” (Morris 35).

The agent for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is trauma. Although most people will encounter a traumatic stressor at least once, and sometimes several times in their lives it is important to note that most people who experience a traumatic event will not develop PTSD (Breslau, 2007). Research shows that there is still controversy over whether or not PTSD symptoms really are caused by exposure to traumatic stressors, because all of but a few of the symptoms for the condition, could happen to an individual even when they have not experienced a traumatic stressor (Ford,

The objective here is to use anchoring to reduce or change the impact of a memory. A typical choice of memory would be a traumatic memory that has left an upsetting emotional memory and imprint.

If we had an option to wipe out our memory, would we choose to forget about the events that involved actual or threatened death, serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of ourselves or others? For soldiers, it may be losing a close comrade in a war. For me or any other ordinary individuals, they may be natural or human-made disasters, violent personal attack, torture or even sexually abuse(Parekh). The truth is, we don’t want to be reminded of any of these terrible events that took away a small portion of our lives.