The Brain On Trauma

When I talk about the brain and its functions, I of course share what I have learned in my trauma therapy training. But what makes a difference is that I talk from my own experience. My brain was pretty disconnected in its pathways.

The rational and the emotional could not talk to each other. Countless days of my life were spent dissociating, sitting somewhere for hours being lost in old stories I could not get out of myself. 

I have been there. I know how it feels. The lostness. The shame. The feeling of never belonging. My brain was so tuned into danger that it protected me from life, as happens in so many traumatized beings.

When you feel like you go crazy, it's your rational brain shutting down. It can come back. Those who are beyond the point of being able to return, do not understand that they are "crazy".

As long as you ask yourself if you go crazy, you most definitely are not.

I know, because I had a psychosis as a teenager. My system just couldn't take the stress anymore. During this psychosis, I didn't understand that I have one. For other people, it seemed as if I had lied and told them untrue stories. But for me, the stories were real – until someone showed me that they weren't.

In some ways, I was lucky, because I came out of it. In others, I wasn't, as this incident created a mistrust towards my own brain for decades to come.

Very simply said, psychosis happens when your rational brain shuts down completely. Then your fantasy and your emotions take over – like f.e. when people get super paranoid and can't be talked out of it. The same happens in lots of “borderline” and “bipolar” people.

Broken down, the diagnosis just talks about what is perceived. Underlying that which is perceived are energy currents; either the energy flows through certain parts of the brain, or it doesn't. Either all parts of the brain are "online" and communicating with each other, or they aren't. If they aren’t, it’s because the brain doesn’t perceive the current circumstances as safe.

Children and grownups who "throw tantrums" suffer from their rational brain shutting down and their emotions and visions taking over.

This is always an attempt of establishing safety. Hence the “cure” can be found in creating a life and connections that feel safe.