How does trauma happen in our brain and body?
Trauma happens when something overwhelms the brain. It is a normal human response to an abnormal event.
When we experience a traumatic event, adrenaline is produced and races through our body triggering the fight/flight/freeze state; the memory of the event is imprinted into a part of the limbic system called the amygdala. The amygdala keeps the emotions of the event, including the intensity and impulse of the emotions experienced at that time.
If you were on a roller coaster for example, the sensory information recorded might be “fear, speed, anxiety, excitement, but not life- threatening.” The amygdala therefore recognises and reads the emotional consequence of this roller coaster ride (the event) as a fun experience which will be over in just two or three minutes.
The visual images of events are stored as sensory fragments. This means that the memory is not saved in a logical sequence like a story, but instead in the way that our five senses experience things. Memories are therefore stored in random, sensory fragments of that moment in time: visual images, smells, sounds, tastes, what we were touching or could physically feel. Often when we try to recall the event later, it is not in a logical order and we can find it hard to remember the exact sequence of events.
As a consequence, memories of traumatic events can easily be triggered by random sensory input from everyday events, causing us to experience “normal” circumstances to be dangerous. For example, the beeping of a reversing sensor on a truck reminds of us the heart monitor beeping, the smell of disinfectant reminds us of the hospital room, the feel of a particular fabric reminds us of the feel of the hospital bed, a fragrance reminds us of a person who was there with us. These everyday sensory fragments are interpreted incorrectly and the brain is unable to interpret the difference between what is a threat and what is safe, normal life.
The rational part of our brain (the prefrontal cortex), where all our processing, reasoning, and consciousness takes place, and where we make meaning of language, shuts down. We are unable to behave in the way we would do normally. We are in a fight, flight, or freeze state, our body is in survival mode, our brain becomes disorganised and overwhelmed.
When we relate this to birth, the fight/flight/freeze state means our body believes it is not a safe time to give birth, however if we are in mid-labour we are not in a position to fight or flee, so the final step – freeze – is activated. The freeze state can often look like dissociation or physically giving in, it can feel like submission – being quiet, agreeable, appeasing the people who are in our birth space, perhaps being agreeable and nice to them even when we don’t actually agree with what they are saying.
It is important to know that this is a survival technique and not conscious behaviour over which we have control. It is easy to look back on the events of our birth afterwards and be hard on ourselves for not standing up and saying what we wanted, or agreeing to something we never wanted to do.
If our sympathetic nervous system is activated by fear, stress or anxiety in early labour, it is very likely labour will stop or slow right down to allow the fight/flight/freeze process to take place. Blood supply is diverted to our muscles (to fight) and lungs (to increase oxygen to run). When we feel safe again, our parasympathetic nervous system takes over and labour will resume. If the trauma or fear occurs towards the end of labour when the baby is close to being born, then adrenaline peaks to get the baby out fast so you can pick your baby up and run.
Think about how these scenarios might look in early and late labour… how many times do you hear that a birthing parent is told that a consultant is being called so that ventouse or forceps can be used to help deliver the baby, only to find that the parent suddenly finds a rush of energy and the baby is born before the intervention takes place. Sometimes when a parent goes into hospital early in labour the change in environment causes stress levels to rise, and labour stalls.
After traumatic events, our nervous system is on high alert looking for the next threat to come our way, this can create anxiety, hyper-vigilance over our baby, feelings of numbness, poor sleep and other negative emotions/behaviour. Our brain can be so busy making sure that we survive, that we find it a struggle to bond with our baby.
If we are not able to process the events leading to this trauma response, for months or even years, we will continue to re-experience these feelings of anxiety and stress whenever our memory is inadvertently triggered by every day sights, sounds, smells and textures. Our brain will automatically interpret the situation as dangerous – just as the original event was. This is an unconscious reaction and our brain is unable to separate the traumatic event and the sensory input that triggers the memory.
If any of this feels familiar to you, get in touch to book a session with me. During this session you will be in a safe space to be heard, have time to reflect on your story, gain some understanding as to why things happened as they did and consider some tools to help you on your healing journey.