The experiences we live throughout life, especially during childhood, can have a great influence on our development, and even generate negative impacts on our brain. in the form of traumas and intrusive ideas. “Healing” these can be complex. These memories can present themselves in the form of suffering in adulthood, and are an echo of those episodes of great intensity and emotional imprint experienced in childhood.
When someone has experienced episodes of physical or emotional abuse, or has not received the necessary care from their attachment figures, it is possible that they will suffer psychological consequences later. However, part of the “blame” for this damage lies with the same mechanism that the brain uses to protect us from complicated situations. Let’s see it.
In the face of certain harmful and traumatic experiences, at a physiological level, there is an alteration in the brain structures, as well as a great impact on an emotional level. There are times when an event appears and we don’t know how to handle it and a strong and long-lasting negative emotion floods us.
In consultation I like to ask my patients to imagine that the brain is like a computer that contains all the information, experiences and memories of their life collected, organized and processed in folders. But, when an event overwhelms us, the experiences lived are stored in other different memory networks. Memories related to the overwhelming negative experience have been blocked and fragmented, as if they had been frozen, isolated from the rest of the organized folders. It happens with these memories that we have not had the opportunity to process, since our brain has wanted to help us by removing them from our daily lives, because otherwise it would generate a very intense emotion that is difficult to bear.
But… what happens? Well, for this help that our brain provides us we pay a price, since at a given moment these experiences will be activated by a trigger stimulus, that is, a new experience or situation that makes us re-experience what happened previously unconsciously, and everything comes to light. Sometimes they are little things that we cannot control but that They make us feel like we are really reliving that moment.
Although most memories end up being forgotten, those that refer to this type of experience are too intense to be simply forgotten, but they are not sufficiently contextualized and linked to our predominant beliefs, ideas and values to be part of that network of memories through which we move normally.
An example of a traumatic memory
Perhaps with this example it can be understood better. Imagine a child who, at the age of 7, had a car accident with his parents. The 3 were very serious but finally they were able to move forward. At home there was no talk of what happened, not only the accident, but the subsequent slow recovery in which their lives were in danger. There has been no opportunity to explain to the child what happened, so that he could understand that experience and integrate it into his perception of reality.
This event is filed in the brain, but it is saved without being associated with the thoughts that accompanied it that day and during subsequent days. Furthermore, the brain, which is very good to us and always wants to protect us, confines this event deep within it so that this child can continue with his normal life.
A few years pass and this boy turns 18 years old. His greatest hope is to get his driving license, but on his first day of practical class and once he is in the car, he begins to feel very anxious and nervous, so much so that he does not see himself able to start the car and drive, without know why. It is at this moment when he re-experiences what happened that afternoon when he was 7 years old.
What happens is that from a painful experience for the person, information is stored in the brain in a dysfunctional way. When archived in this way, the information cannot be integrated or used by the person.
In the case of children who have suffered abuse, neglect or abandonment, the brain learns to protect itself and can adopt two different modes of functioning. It can become a hypervigilant brain, that is, the brain is constantly alert, even in the face of stimuli that are not dangerous or put the person’s life at risk. Our body reacts as if something bad is happening.
But this does not stop there; Our brain can also adopt a form contrary to hypervigilance, that is, it can be underactivated. In these situations it is blocked, and we may not remember many of the memories related to that disturbing event. This process will allow the individual to tell the event in a neutral way without emotional charge, as if separating from it.
Advantages and disadvantages of this protection
That our brain protects us in this way can be very advantageous, since it leaves us free from suffering and allows us to continue with our lives, but the truth is that In the long run it has multiple and uncomfortable consequences
Perhaps the emotions of those who live this experience are anesthetized, or there may be moments when they begin to feel some anxiety and do not know why. Possibly you have experienced something that has led you to that hidden memory from the past, so if you do not work on it, the effect of this memory can appear again and again.
Sometimes, it is very difficult to detect that the damage from the past still continues in the present, since, as I have explained previously, emotions, and sometimes also memories, are dissociated or blocked. But it is important to work on these experiences, since in some cases they can lead to the appearance of disorders. Remember, the past cannot be forgotten, but we can work on it so that we do not constantly reexperience it and continue to harm us.
