reportage
Too much, Too soon, Too little
It was the night. I was coming back home by car with my parents. As a little girl, I was sleeping on the back couch. A big wham and jolt woke me up. I was shocked because I didn't know what had happened. My father got out of the car. I was crying and screaming because I thought he would die. But fortunately, it wasn't anything serious. I even forgot about that event. But 24 years later, I was coming back home by bus. It was the night. I couldn't breathe and wanted to get out of the bus immediately. Unconsciously I developed a pretty massive panic attack. It was a form of trauma response.
A
s human creatures, we often perceive some complicated emotions as unbearable and unwanted, so we try to avoid them. But every emotion, no matter how difficult – has an essential role in our lives. Our nervous system is doing everything for us to survive, and the role of the hard emotion is to protect us. When you are angry, it might mean that someone crossed your boundaries, and emotion signals that you have to react. We feel emotions in the body, not in the brain. Not working through emotional disturbances from the past might increase the temperature of current emotions because our bodies remember past traumas.
12 - VOICES
Our brains don't like surprises. Every unexpected event for which our nervous system cannot be prepared may be perceived as traumatic. The brain wants to keep us alive, no matter at what cost. It doesn't care about the quality of your life – the most important is that you survived. When it is trying to protect us, it might cut us from hurtful memories or even cut out feelings in some parts of our body. But then, suddenly, even after years, you still can experience the same or intensified emotions. Especially when your nervous system perceives the situation as the same danger you've experienced before because of
some triggers (stimuli that affect an intense emotional state. In my case, it was traveling by night). According to Sabina Sadecka, the other trauma definition can also be: too much, too soon, too little. Psychologists often talk about childhood trauma, so let's use the same example. When you're a child, you need someone to take care of you, but for whatever reason, your guardians will give you too little supervision in a long period – it can be traumatic. When you have to deal with unbearable events like war, natural disasters, or accidents, it might be overwhelming for your nervous system. That can be too much to deal with. For children – also too soon, when suddenly they have to take care of their family. Now, a little bit of neuroscience. A general director of the brain is the prefrontal cortex. It estimates, plans, and solves problems. It connects inner and external stimuli and regulates impulses and emotions. Amygdala is a central fear system in our bodies. It collects non-verbal signals, especially those negative ones, and immediately sends an alarm to other brain parts. Pounding heart, shaking body, and will to run. Fear. Who likes that? Imagine standing at the cliff's edgeautomatic response will be adrenaline rush – like an alarm "you are in danger, you have to run." It's called fight or flight response — the tension of the muscles increases, as well as blood pressure and blood sugar level. Our body prepares the move to protect us. The main problem occurs when the tension becomes not regulated. It makes no difference to our brain that the danger is not real; for instance,
