Good morning everyone! I wanted to talk a little bit about how trauma can affect our body and mind through three different protective mechanisms: Dissociative Amnesia, Intrusive Memories and Emotional Memory.
I wanted to write about this subject because everyone experiences trauma at some point in their life, so we all can relate; but I was also reminded of a story that a woman told on a podcast about the Bikram Yoga Cult. In her story she was sexually assaulted by Bikram Choudhury, the founder of Bikram Yoga, which is a shocking and horrific story about abuse, compliance, grooming, and fawning. I will be writing an entire blog about this topic later, but I wanted to address this woman’s specific traumatic experience. When she was being abused by Bikram, she explains how her mind and body were separated during the attack, as a way to protect herself in that moment. She describes her body as going numb, and only after the fact did she recall exactly what happened. It can happen like that, where we have a memory gap, or we don’t remember anything, but our body remembers.
Trauma impacts memory by making it difficult to remember traumatic events, leaving gaps or blackouts in memory, or the opposite, where we have horrific and intrusive flashbacks that disrupt our everyday life. The reason we have these reactions to trauma is because of the abnormally high stress response we encounter during the trauma, and which disrupts the brains memory encoding process. When there’s a disruption or inability to properly process a memory, it can lead to fragmented or incomplete recollection of the event.
Dissociative Amnesia is when a person may have significant memory gaps about the traumatic event as a protective/survival mechanism.
Intrusive Memory is when fragments of the traumatic moment reappear unexpectedly, often triggered by a sensory experience.
Emotional Memory is when seemingly mundane or unrelated stimuli triggers an intense emotional response in us. This happens because the need to protect ourselves is stored in the part of our brain that controls and processes memory and emotion. So, whenever a situation arises that reminds us of the traumatic event, our brain sends a message to alert the body of a perceived threat.
Trauma is often stored and felt in the body, even if our mind can’t remember what happened. As the popular book, The Body Keeps the Score, talks about trauma trapped inside the body, it often reveals itself through physical ways like headaches, jumpiness, chronic pain and dissociation.
Trauma adds a lot of stress to our body and mind through these different coping mechanisms, and by keeping the nervous system in a constant ‘flight or fight’ existence. This is why practicing Mindful Meditation and Relaxation Techniques can be extremely beneficial in processing and releasing trauma from the body. Involving yourself in activities such as yoga, mindfulness, exercise and receiving massage and other relaxation forms of selfcare are beneficial ways in managing and coping with past or present trauma.
Everyone has experienced trauma of some kind, but if you find that it disrupts your everyday life, or find it difficult to tolerate everyday activities, it may be time to address the root cause of your trauma. Seeing a therapist or visiting with a BodyMind Bridge Specialist can be helpful to figure out the root of the problem.
How do you feel that you experience trauma? Share your thoughts!
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