“However, trauma is much more than a story about something that happened long

ago. The emotions and physical sensations that were imprinted during the trauma

are experienced not as memories but as disruptive physical reactions in the

present.

In order to regain control over your self, you need to revisit the trauma:

Sooner or later you need to confront what has happened to you, but only after

you feel safe and will not be retraumatized by it. The first order of business is to

find ways to cope with feeling overwhelmed by the sensations and emotions

associated with the past.

As the previous parts of this book have shown, the engines of posttraumatic

reactions are located in the emotional brain. In contrast with the rational brain,

which expresses itself in thoughts, the emotional brain manifests itself in

physical reactions: gut-wrenching sensations, heart pounding, breathing

becoming fast and shallow, feelings of heartbreak, speaking with an uptight and

reedy voice, and the characteristic body movements that signify collapse,

rigidity, rage, or defensiveness.

Why can’t we just be reasonable? And can understanding help? The rational,

executive brain is good at helping us understand where feelings come from (as

in: “I get scared when I get close to a guy because my father molested me” or “I

have trouble expressing my love toward my son because I feel guilty about

having killed a child in Iraq”). However, the rational brain cannot abolish

emotions, sensations, or thoughts (such as living with a low-level sense of threat

or feeling that you are fundamentally a terrible person, even though you

rationally know that you are not to blame for having been raped). Understanding

why you feel a certain way does not change how you feel. But it can keep you

from surrendering to intense reactions (for example, assaulting a boss who

reminds you of a perpetrator, breaking up with a lover at your first disagreement,

or jumping into the arms of a stranger). However, the more frazzled we are, the

more our rational brains take a backseat to our emotions.3

LIMBIC SYSTEM THERAPY

The fundamental issue in resolving traumatic stress is to restore the proper

balance between the rational and emotional brains, so that you can feel in charge

of how you respond and how you conduct your life. When we’re triggered into

states of hyper-or hypoarousal, we are pushed outside our “window of

tolerance”—the range of optimal functioning.4 We become reactive and

disorganized; our filters stop working—sounds and lights bother us, unwanted

images from the past intrude on our minds, and we panic or fly into rages. If

we’re shut down, we feel numb in body and mind; our thinking becomes

sluggish and we have trouble getting out of our chairs.

As long as people are either hyperaroused or shut down, they cannot learn

from experience.” The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk

This describes my life, emotional, erratic, thoughtless, driven by intense emotions linked directly to the many traumas of the past that bid me silence.

I cannot number the times my mind has gone back to actions and reactions that were completely out of my control, yet I own them; the time I called for help because I didn’t want to go back to Florida with Bob, but knew it was inevitable left to my own devices; the time before that when my ex said a ghastly thing to me about my worth as a person triggering the flight response. Florida became a relatively “safe haven.”

Hospitalization became another safe place when I could neither fathom or control my chaotic emotions.

I am glad for the insight, and sad at the years it took from my family and myself. Also sad that at 66, I must work so hard to heal my ravaged insides. But I am not alone in this.

Not all trauma leaves people with PTSD. Suffering in silence, as was typical for abuse victims in my generation and before, and as many people still think abuse should be silenced and buried, contributes to years of re-abuse by others and our own bodies. Our bodies work against us by keeping the score, they tell us things are happening that are no longer happening. We react, fight or flight, and then the roller-coaster continues with a mind of its own.

I am told I can learn to disarm the power my triggers have over my actions with mindfulness. It seems to be working. I am grateful.