Trauma

PTSD, (post traumatic stress disorder), CPTSD, small 't' trauma, 'big T' trauma, dysregulation, shut down, meltdown, flashbacks, hyer or hypo vigilance, arousal, being triggered, activated etc etc. These are just a selection of the words used to describe someone who has experienced trauma.

Trauma is not so much the event but how the event lands in the person, how it impacts them. This is affected by the nature of the world surrounding the person at the time of the traumatic event, what resources are available to them etc. Things such as these can determine what sense the person's nervous system will make of the event.

Our nervous systems operate outside of our awareness. Their primary function is our survival. And this means that our nervous system will do whatever it takes to ensure that we survive. The problem is when that system gets stuck. And when the event is unable to be processed and filed away as a memory in our past. We might then be left with free floating feelings, beliefs, behaviours, somatic feelings etc that are waiting to get reactivated. The result is that the environment in the here and now can feel hostile to us. It can be activating (or triggering) our past held beliefs, feelings, behaviours, somatic feelings etc.

The mechanism for all of this usually (initially) happens outside of our awareness. Although we may be fully aware of the distress.

Or you might even KNOW all of this stuff now somewhere in your brain, but your body and feelings FEEL differently - that is because difficult experiences and trauma get encoded in our bodies and our memory networks and once activated, the body and nervous system take over and we can feel like we have lost control over any logic.