Treating Complex PTSD—healing the nervous system
When we experience trauma that is overwhelming to our systems, our brain stimulates production of certain chemicals which tell our nervous system to prepare for flight, fight, or freezing/shutdown. Whether we successfully escape the trauma or not, there is an imprint in our body and brain—where the experience is stored. This imprint—a bookmark to the unwanted experience –is now set and can be triggered again and again by apparently random signals, which fool our nervous systems into responding to the perceived danger.
The blood starts pumping, heart pounding, fear increases. We get angry and ready to fight at the slightest provocation or we feel trapped and can’t get away fast enough, or we go numb and freeze, barely breathing or moving. Sometimes these reactions seem to fit the circumstance we are now facing, but more often, our reaction seems excessive to either ourselves or those around us.
These are often "shock” reactions. Our bodies and sometimes our minds are no longer in the present, in our adult functioning, they have become tiny war veterans who are back in the original trenches of despair and powerlessness. Our brain calls up the experiences and tells us it is overwhelming to the system and there is no way to cope.
Trauma is stored in non-ordinary memory, emerging only in these frightening, flashback type experiences where it is difficult and sometimes impossible to remember that “that was then and this is now.” Normal access to the tools of coping, processing, and mastery remain unavailable.
There are now simple, powerful tools to treat the shock and trauma in the nervous system, allowing our adult functioning to come “back online”
