Trauma Response

Unconscious drives

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It seems we have control over who we are, but how we relate to the world is far more complex than conscious choice. Our nervous system connects all the areas of our body with our brain and controls the functioning of our organs and muscles in response to our current needs. The brain receives information from what we see, hear, feel, smell and taste, as well as from the internal functions of our body, such as hormone levels, breathing, body position and digestion. The brain continually adjusts these internal functions by rapidly interpreting the information received. Messages pass between the brain and the body four times every second. Thankfully, our conscious brain is not required in this process, and most communication occurs without our awareness.

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Staying safe

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The most critical role of our brain is to keep us safe from danger and alive. Fortunately, we are free from life-threatening hazards most of the time. This allows our brains to focus on tasks that keep us comfortable, like socializing, learning, exercising, seeking pleasure and earning money. We can be creative, social, curious, and flexible when we feel safe.

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Triggered by the past

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We tend to trust the interpretations rapidly being made by our brains without hearing all the logic behind them. Imagine being asked during a work meeting to report on a project that you know well. At a subconscious level, you recall every time you've been asked to speak about something, including when you were eight years old and asked a question you weren't confident about in class. As a child, you awkwardly stumbled over your words and felt embarrassed and humiliated, wishing the ground would open up and swallow you whole as your classmates laughed at you. Even though you're an adult and love the project you're working on when asked to present in the meeting, your brain recalls this earlier life experience, detects similarities to your current situation, interprets potential threats, and prepares you to respond to danger. As an adult, your palms sweat, and your heart rate increases as a small amount of adrenaline is released into your blood. Your brain detects these changes in your body and interprets them as further evidence of danger. Your fear response is now exaggerated, and speaking to your colleagues about your project feels far more challenging than it is. This was all triggered by a subconscious process of associating with an experience that ended years ago, but the body quickly recalled.

 

Common examples of subconscious reaction

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We all encounter cues that have us responding out of proportion at times. Here are a few of the common ones:

- Feeling nauseous when we smell food or drink that previously caused us to vomit,

- Reminded of being reprimanded during childhood, we check our speed limit, just in case when we notice a police car while driving,

- Agreeing to do something without any thought because we were taught to obey instructions,

- Feeling aggrieved when a car pulls in front of us like we felt when a sibling or peer mistreated us during childhood.

 

Anytime we find that our reactions don't fit with our current situation, we are reacting to subconscious reminders of unresolved issues from our past. This is called a trauma response. The examples used here are mild and ordinary. The more significant and extensive the unresolved traumas we live with, the more frequent and exaggerated our responses will be.