Trauma is being exposed to an emotion that we cannot handle spiritually. When we are exposed to pain beyond what we can bear, our physical reaction is fainting, while our spiritual reaction is freezing.
We have three strategies to survive. If you have the strength to fight, fight; if you have time to escape, run; if you don't have the strength to fight and don't have time to escape, freeze. This is the survival strategy of all living things in nature.
When we are exposed to a high spiritual emotion such as accident, death, harassment, violence, high levels of adrenaline and stress hormones are secreted in our brain. These hormones cause the event we experience to be recorded permanently in our brain. We call this the ironing effect. In other words, the emotions we experience in trauma cause permanent damage to our brain that will last a lifetime.
The younger we are at being exposed to trauma, the greater the psychological damage we receive from the trauma. So if she is abused at age 3, it affects her more than if she was abused at age 10. Or if his mother dies when he is 5, he is more affected by her death when he is 13. In other words, as the age decreases, the psychological damage increases.
Our mind does not remember memories under the age of 3, memories under the age of 3 are recorded in the body memory. There are several regions in our brain responsible for memories, one of which is the hippocampus. The hippocampus is underdeveloped until the age of 3, so traumas experienced until the age of three are recorded in the body memory. You get a headache when you become an adult, for example, the headache is the result of a childhood trauma igniting. But our conscious part does not know this. When we are exposed to a negative emotion we experienced as a child today, it may be helplessness, worthlessness, loneliness, the memories we experienced in our childhood about these emotions are ignited in our subconscious. Today, many diseases with unknown causes in medicine are based on traumas under the age of 3.
Eighty percent of our brain development is completed by the age of 6. So, between the ages of 0-6 is a very critical period. The negative memories experienced during this period have an effect on a person's life, like writing on concrete.
The recording of traumatic memories in the brain is different from other memories. Traumatic memories cannot be integrated with other memories in the brain. Therefore, outside � It stands somewhere, like in a bowl. Since this information and emotions are not integrated with other memories, it causes feelings such as restlessness, pain, fear, anxiety, anxiety, emptiness, unhappiness that have no reason in our daily lives.
DREAMS
Tartraumatic memories also appear in dreams in a different way. Neurophysiologically, our dreaming phase consists of dreaming for a few minutes every hour and a half. When we first go to bed, we dream less because we are physically tired. As the body rests, the rate of dreaming begins to increase. Research on traumatic dreams shows that we are exposed to fragments of traumatic memories during that one and a half hour period when we are not dreaming. Dreams, which we commonly call nightmares, give the person the feeling of being alive and real. While dreaming, a person can actually cry and shout. Traumatic memories frequently recur in dreams. You can see the same dream as vivid and real and at regular intervals. Therefore, the dream of the trauma memory appears in the brain in a different way.
TRAUMA DISTURBES THE BASIC SENSE OF TRUST
Feeling safe in the world is a feeling we gain in the relationship we establish with the caregiver, that is, the mother, at the beginning of life. The basic sense of trust of the person who is exposed to trauma is disrupted. For example, the sense of trust of the person who was abused in childhood is disrupted in people and the world. A person who was exposed to physical violence in childhood continues his life with the feeling that all people are harmful. Therefore, people who were exposed to torture or harassment by other people in childhood lose their sense of trust in the world and in people.
The deep crack in the basic sense of trust prevents the person from establishing close relationships. However, the feelings of fear, anxiety and guilt caused by the traumatic event intensify the need for protective attachment. That's why traumatic people oscillate between anxious clinging to others and feelings of loneliness.
If one of the caregivers harms the child, they cause the child to make a distortion about himself that he is inherently bad, such as harassment, beating, intimidation, humiliation.
RECOVERY
Our brain works according to the pleasure principle. If there is pleasure Run, if there is pain, run away. Therefore, we want to escape from the painful emotions we experience and always want to feel good. That's why the person does not want to remember the painful feelings he experienced. The emotions of traumatic memories are painful. When we remember these memories, we feel pain as if we were alive today. Tarvama heals by talking about traumatic memories in therapy. If the person endures the pain of the traumatic memory he experienced, he releases this feeling.
At this stage, there is a frightening feeling of timelessness, and the trauma becomes ordinary like other memories by talking about it, that is, its structuring requires diving into the past. As the traumatic memories are talked about, the person suffers, cries, gets sad and feels bad. These feelings seem like they will never end. It feels like he will suffer this pain for a lifetime. The key to releasing a traumatic memory is to experience the pain and end it. No pain lasts forever. Avoiding pain causes the effects of trauma to last a lifetime.
Even though the person is not responsible for the damage done to him/her, he is responsible for his recovery. The only way for a person to heal and become stronger is to take responsibility for his therapy.
EMDR and EFT are among the trauma healing methods we use in therapy. Emdr enables the connection between the right brain and the left brain. Traumatic memories stored in the right brain match the information. EMDR allows the brain to process trauma. EFT is an emotional release technique. Emotions in trauma are released with the EFT technique.
Read: 0
