When the brain functions the way it’s supposed to we function well.
Trauma can change all that. Trauma is a wounding. It overwhelms the ordinary adaptations to life. Trauma can create PTSD. This is not just an emotional response to troubling events, it’s the expression of a persistent deregulation of body and brain chemistry. And brain chemistry can be altered for decades. With this change arousing events can trigger flashbacks.3 Trauma creates chaos in our brain. Trauma causes an emotional as well as a cognitive concussion. If trauma occurs as a child it hard-wires the experience.
The Amygdala is a small, almond shaped portion of the brain. It’s the emotional part. It’s the primitive part of the brain. It interprets messages that there’s danger or it’s safe. It knows nothing about reasoning or cognitive functions. It deals with feelings and emotions.
It’s the alarm portion of the brain. It becomes highly active during and while remembering a traumatic incident. It controls our behavior. When you’ve been in trauma it’s hypersensitive—overreacts to normal stimuli. It sees a large person and feels "he’s going to hurt me. Oh no!"
Another part of the brain (hippocampus) is analytical and calms down the emotional part of the brain: It analyzes things and puts things in perspective – "No, a large person doesn’t mean he’ll hurt me. He’s just large and eats a lot."
Left brain and right brain have to pull together, otherwise just one side is in charge.
Trauma freezes thinking