Trauma, Memory, and a Bear
Last weekend I went on a backcountry hike in the mountains with my family. It was a simple hike, not very long, and not much elevation gain. I didn't really think anything of it as we set out in the beautiful landscape.
Until I saw a bear shortly after we reached the end of the trail.
I was walking at the end of the line behind all of my family members, when I sensed movement in the trees to my left. I looked over and saw something. I stopped and stared while it took several seconds for it to hit me what was happening. That's a bear.I kind of froze. The bear and I had a brief moment of eye contact. I couldn't quite think what to do. And then I managed to tell my family what I was seeing and we sprang into action, collectively recalling our backcountry bear skills. We made our way miles out of the wilderness and back to the car, eventually ending the hike without any more bear encounters. With the bear in the distance, we were able to relax and chat.
My family filled in details I had no real awareness or memory of...
The bear was about 20 yards away from me... My daughter and I had stopped so she could tie her shoelace and she had her back turned turned to me and the bear when I saw it... I told my daughter to get up and get behind me... The bear turned around and ran back into the woods as soon as I alerted everyone, loudly, to its presence...
I remembered none of these details.
The only thing I could really remember from the moment was the image of the bear when I first looked up and saw it. That image was so vivid... huge black bear coming out of the trees, wide set front legs on the ground, enormous face staring at me. But nothing else was part of my memory from the time we saw the bear until we got close to the car and I knew we were safe.
I'm okay and I'm not traumatized from the bear, haha. But the whole experience highlighted for me how trauma works. How in any situation where there's a high level of fear, when you think something really bad could happen or is happening, where you feel unsafe, or find yourself in acute danger...
Time stands still
Your thinking feels impaired
Your body just does something automatically
Images seem seared in your mind
In the face of a perceived threat or extreme fear, your brain is designed to work differently to keep you safe
Your prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of your brain, shuts down - causing your thinking and reasoning to feel impaired. Your amygdala, the emotional part of your brain, becomes overactive and heightens fear - causing time to stand still. Your hippocampus, a memory making center in the brain, becomes very limited - causing memories to be stored as vivid images without words or details , and to feel stuck in time. Your brainstem, the primitive brain, takes over - causing your body to just react in ways that feel out of control.
You're in survival mode.
In survival mode, your brain and body are just trying to protect you. They're trying to make sure you stay alive. They're working to get you out of a bad situation as safely as possible. And that's a good thing. But it doesn't always feel like it.
After a traumatic event, there are often a lot of questions about “why”
Why didn't I do something different? Why did I just freeze? Why can't I remember details? Why can't I stop picturing the most disturbing part?
It's because your brain and body just automatically did what they could to try and keep you safe. You didn't have time or capacity to think, the primitive part of your brain just took over and kicked you into survival mode. Sometimes that automatic survival response is different than a decision you would have made with your rational mind. But your rational mind, by design, isn't always available in those moments and so your primitive survival instinct switches on and takes over.
Just like my experience with the bear, which turned out okay in the end.
But in the moment, I sensed a threat and my survival response caused me to freeze, and then act outside of my conscious awareness, and later not remember the details of what happened except for one still frame, very vivid image.
Trauma experiences get stored as vivid images, powerful negative beliefs, intense emotions, and overwhelming body sensations
Traumatic experiences often feel stuck in time, continually presenting you with those images, beliefs, emotions, and physical sensations that you know are in the past but feel like they live on in the present, sometimes causing immense distress. EMDR is an approach that can address all of these facets of trauma and provide a way to resolve them for good.
