1.2. What is Trauma? Brain Mechanism of PTSD

It's not so mysterious, actually.

We’ve really made Trauma into a big word with a lot of negative connotation, qualification, and over-complication. I don’t know a single person who hasn’t shamefully uttered the phrase “But I wonder if that’s really bad enough to count as trauma, when other people have had it worse.”

So let’s stop right there and clear up the fact that trauma has nothing to do with being in the top 1% of human tragedy. That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

What IS Trauma, speaking from a neurological level? How do our memories split, our heads get littered with backed up data, and our bodies join in the dysregulated shitshow? What are flashbacks, triggerings, and intrusive thoughts? Where does rumination fit into the puzzle? What's our "Human" vs "Animal" power struggle got to do with it? And how can we visualize things, neurally, to understand our brain errors?

Let's talk about Trauma, in one conceptualization of neuro-, systems, psycho-, and evolutionary biology... Plus, less-sunny snippits of "real life on trauma" experiential recall - because you're not the only one feeling like life's become an endless death march on bloody knees through a hurricane.

You aren't alone. You aren't the only one learning how to handle your T Brain or T Life. And there are a few hundred Fuckers waiting to talk trauma in the TMFR private community, available anytime through Patreon and Discord. If you're ready to hear the whole story, hit up patreon.com/traumatizedmotherfuckers to get the full backlog of TMFR research and reveal episodes for figh bucks.

If you've got a story to share, record yourself! Use any headset and recording app, and send your Self to traumatizedmotherfxckers@gmail.com to get on the show. Send out a signal; let someone know they're not in this alone.

Cheers Fuckers

Jess

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