Posts: 6578
Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 6:48 am
In light of some recent debates, I decided to start a thread on the issue. I wrote this a while back with regards to sexual assault and PTSD (it is not the full report). Maybe it will be helpful to some here.
Post-Trauma Problems
When we undergo a major trauma, we experience danger - a threat to our life or our integrity, whether physical, emotional or both. The natural response to such an event is extreme fear. For example, some fear responses might be to fight, to run away, or to freeze. These responses are normal reactions to threat. They may affect us physically (heart pounding, sweating), cognitively (thinking we are in danger), or behaviourally (trying to get away). Some of the circumstances associated with the traumatic event (location, person, or anything) also have the power to elicit fear, sometimes even many years after the event.
Sexual abuse is a major event. It can be a threat to our physical and emotional integrity, even to our life. It is a painful and extremely unpleasant experience. All the circumstances surrounding the abuse, including our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, create a network of association or connection which is registered in our memory. Certain odours, clothing, locations may all become a part of this memory. It is like a "fear network" in the memory. Some cues may be more relevant than others or stronger in our memory, and the less relevant ones may disappear. If you think about the assault, or see something associated with it, you may experience this extreme fear and other feelings related to the assault. It is unpleasant to feel this way, so most people tend to push painful memories away. We may tell ourselves things like, "Don't think about it, time cures all," etc. Other people may advise us to use such avoidance tactics believing that this is the best way to cope with traumas; also friends, relatives, or partners may feel uncomfortable hearing about the assault and may subtly influence us not to talk about it. Unfortunately, with highly traumatic events, ignoring feelings and fears does not make them go away and every now and then the emotional memories recur. It's like eating a lot of very rich food - your body isn't equipped to digest it all at once and you feel sick. The intense emotion and the experience needs to be "digested" to feel better - they may be assimilated as part of your life.
It is not easy to digest painful experiences and it takes some work to deal with the experience. Many of your assumptions or expectations about people and the world may have been shattered and you haven't had the opportunity to rebuild and regain your trust in others. Often the experience comes back to haunt you through nightmares, flashbacks, depression, etc. because it is "unfinished business".
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