Forgetting: Is this the normal response to trauma?
I can remember at the beginning of the semester either Dr. Boer or perhaps Dr. van der Kolk noted the way the mind and body respond to trauma is a normal response. Parts of our brain go into overdrive protecting the body and mind from harm, while other parts of the brain shut down and even decrease in size. This is normal. When we face trauma, our brains also forget.
As difficult or frustrating as it may be to not have full memory of exact events or scenarios, how beautiful this ability actually is. How tragic it would be to continuously relive the sexual abuse from a perpetrator over and over again. How much more harm would it cause to the body, mind, and spirit to continuously be haunted by the images, sounds, and smells of an abuser if the memory did not shut down. How redeeming it is for God to cause this to happen in the brain when trauma and tragedy hit. Yet, when people do remember--like the story of Julian--navigating how people remember or what triggers their vivid memories is vital. What if the person does not realize what their body is telling them is from a traumatic event? How do we, as social workers, have the eyes to see it before or along with them?
I found van der Kolk's notion of ordinary everyday experiences going into oblivion but the insults and injuries are remembered the best. He writes, "even if the content of the remark fades, our dislike for the person who made it usually persists" (p. 178). When my niece was a young girl, a family friend thought he was teasing her but the teasing actually turned into fear. My niece became visibly upset and clung to her parents. The friend was a super nice guy who meant no harm. Yet, to this day, over eighteen years later, my niece continues to be apprehensive around him. There was something about him that made her anxious.
Overall, I found these two chapter difficult to read with the continuous stories of traumatic events occurring to people who had no voice to use to stop it (Julian at a young age) or had a voice but couldn't use it (Nancy's story). I found van der Kolk's point on page 197 so accurate in thinking through how we walk with people through the muck and myre of their past: "Each patient demands that we suspend our sense of what is normal and accept that we are dealing with a dual reality: the reality of a relatively secure and predictable present that lives side by side with a ruinous, ever-present past." How do we give voice to people who have never had a voice to use? And, how do we give voice to people who did not know they have a story to tell because no one has ever given them the permission to remember their story? "The mind cannot help but make meaning out of what it knows, and the meaning we make of our lives changes how and what we remember" (p. 193).
Thanks for including those quotes. It definitely helps frame the reading in an understanding of the personal impacts of trauma. Not only do these themes apply to outright assault and tragedy, but can also play out in emotional abuse and social convention with those who are uncomfortable with specific experiences. It can be difficult to understand the finite, but surprising depth of human memory and having to reckon with the interference of trauma on its ability to recall and process information.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments, Liz. This is Tina Recker. I'm using my daughter's computer while I am out of town. I responded using my phone and it never posted. I hope I can remember my thoughts as well as the first time. What is really sad to me is how the traumatic memory enactments are always lonely, humiliating, and alienating, (p.182). A traumatized person lives with shame and if the person has had multiple traumatic events, the shame is piled up with many layers. This is a horrible way to feel and to live. I agree that, as a social worker, we must find out as much as we can about what a person has endured in their past as well as what they are enduring in the present in order to help them.
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