Notes on Here's Why Trauma Is So Common (A Deep Dive Into Understanding Trauma)

Before the notes

I am not a psychologist or a therapist. The following are notes from a video from HealthyGamerGG. Please refer to his video for details as he explains much better than what’s written below. Use the below notes only as a revision.

This video can be paired up with the previous note I took on You can’t logic your way out of depression.

From 00:09 Trauma manifests as so many problems

Trauma affects the whole person and whole brain and therefore it can’t be chopped into pieces.

Dr. K will describe the whole thing like a painting and hopefully, it clicks.

From 01:00 What is trauma?

By B.navez; - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Trauma is the great chameleon because it manifests as different things. It looks like different things.

From 01:50 Looking at the manifestations of trauma

1. Chronic Depression: Depressed their whole life. A study suggested, depression is not caused by serotonin. It is basically trauma.
2. Impulsivity or Lack of unifying direction.
3. Vulnerability to repeated mistakes. Making the same damn mistake over and over again.
4. In-ability to take risks.
5. Being a people pleaser. I don’t know how to stop.
6. Paralysis of initiation. We can’t bring ourselves to start stuff. We live life reactively or via external stimuli. (Like a NPC)
7. Can’t moderate relationships. Can’t engage in moderate relationships. Either we are BFFs, enemies, or doormats. No balance in relationships.
8. Sematic Problems: Problems with your body that aren’t medically diagnostical. IBS, Chronic Fatique Syndrome, Fibromiolge, Posture O Hypertemsive syndrome

You may think that this is common stuff that everyone deals with and it turns out that it’s related to trauma.

From 07:04 Analysis of statistics

ACEs: Adverse childhood experiences in 60% of people.

PTST: Requires 5 out of 9. (Hypervigilance, Reexprienceing, nightmares)

It can manifest in 1 of 9. Even if you aren’t affected.

From 08:17 Why trauma is so common

Trauma is unique because it’s not a pathology of the brain or the mind. It’s a normal adaptation to a normal circumstance or experience.

Auto-immune is a pathology because the immune system is malfunctioning.

Bipolar is a pathology/malfunction.

Trauma is adaptation. It’s not pathology. It’s a survival mechanism. And therefore, it’s just an attempt to adapt badly. So it can be changed.

From 10:38 How does our mind adapt to things?

Emotions are ment to give you a instant response. For example, if you suddently start feeling Angry, you know how to respond in the situation. It’s a body’s mechanism.

Eastern psychology has a better answer.

With sensory experience comes emotions. Emotion is a very rapid way to respond. If you are angry, you know

Experience brings emotions. if emotions aren’t processed nicely, they sink in and they come back when the experience is similar. #trigger.

From 12:25 The 5 major domains that trauma affects

1. Affect: Emotions. Changes the way we relate to emotions. Especially anger and self-destructive behavior. Disregulated the way we process emotions.
2. Consciousness and attention. Ability to sleep and to check it. We’ll check it out.
3. Self preception or identity. The way we view ourselves
4. Relationships. Trauma is almost always put via relationships. So we changed our views on relationships.
5. Sematic. People with a lot of stress have body changes.

From 14:39 Coercive control

What does it take for something to be traumatic? An environment of coercive control.

Is X traumatic? It can be that not everyone in a situation experiences PTST.

The key aspect is coercive control.

From guards at a prison camp to parents or anyone, it doesn’t have to be taught how to control another human being. It’s discovered.

From 16:08 What happens in the mind of an abuser

They want to destroy your autonomy by imposing certain kinds of limits. Here they make petty or arbitrary rules. (Do it like this because I told you so)

If you treat you unfairly all the time, you’ll check out. But the moment person starts to treat you nicely, you feel you are in control by not pissing the other person off. “if I behave nicely, this person will treat me nicely”.

i.e. Person is capable of kindness.

Dependence of abuser for all things good and all things bad. But if you get treats from one and bad from others we’ll go.

This is love bombing

In the mind of the abused, this person is god. This person is bestower off not having bruises on my body before bed. Abusers have unpredictability. You keep playing the game as it’s random.

Abusers → Casino 1.0.

From 19:17 Being dependent on the abuser

As we become dependent on abusers,

1. Independent action becomes insubordination. (sense of autonomy gets destroyed).
2. no room for trial and error. Can’t test the boundary. It’s about survival. (It has to be a perfect success, if it can’t be a perfect success, I can’t start.

If you look for perfection before starting, it could be a trauma response.

People with trauma use emotional-coping mechanisms, because that’s what they feel is under control. (internal state).

Changing out there is futile.

From 21:23 The correlation between substance use and trauma

You carry that learning with you.

We fix the problem by emotional coping.

When things hurt, I can’t fix them on the outside.

Problems are fixed by fixing emotions.

So we do stuff like get addicted to substances.

Cuz that’s all I know is the strategy that worked.

Become a cycle.

And it manifests as so many different things.

I want what other people want. I don’t know who I am.

Since I have negative emotions and anger, it starts manifesting in different ways.

From 24:58 Solutions for trauma

Our brain is fragmented but it isn’t broken.

91% of BPD will be in remission in 10 years.

Our human body and mind have automatic circuits to heal.

From 26:28 Safety and Stabilization (Most important)

High anxiety and emotion lead to dissociation.

Stop repeated trauma. because that is what happens most time.

Starts by fixing the environment. Strive from independence or limitation around toxic people.

Can be 1 one-hour visit to a therapist at the base.

From 28:04 Anxiety Emotional Coping

Address the disintegration

Evidence-based treatments

• DBT: Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT): type of talk therapy for people who experience emotions very intensely.
• EMDR: Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing: involves moving your eyes a specific way while you process traumatic memories.

Meditation and exercise can also work.

If you are experiencing some kind of emotion, don’t go towards an emotional coping mechanism.

The right hemisphere is turned off in emotional coping. We need the right hemisphere. we need emotion to solve the problem.

Psychotherapy: We take the emotion and put it into language.

Language can substitute for action.

Misunderstanding in society is if we have a problem, we have to fix the problem. not true.

When you articulate, there is integration. When there is integration → flow state. Flow state → Improvement.

Frontal lobes plan and execute tasks, but if the corpus callosum is severed frontal lobes are not connected.

When people do psychotherapy, the brain integrates and you do everything.

Language can substitute for action. Crazy but true.

Cognitive dissonance. If you say something, it’s hard for you not to do it.

You can’t articulate you can’t understand it. When you understand it. This is easy.

Integration comes from understanding. Understanding comes from articulation.

From 33:35 The Ek Tattva Abhyas meditation

Take 10 min. 15 min. Just do one thing.

When taking a poop, poop completely.

When we do ek tattva abhyas, do it completely one thing. For a moment, think about nothing. 1 thing at a time. That’s it.

From 35:04 Trauma is the goldmine to transform your life

Don’t give up hope cuz the majority of research says things will get better.

Trauma is the goldmine to transform your life

Trauma is the fundamental way we work, the way we form relationships, the way we direct, etc. Therefore, it is the great chameleon.

Therefore if we concur on this one thing, we’ll be so good in all areas.

From 36:15 The reason we suffer

The reason we suffer, Avindya.

If we don’t understand the rules of the game, it’ll be painful. Once we understand the rules, we play better.

If there is one thing we need to learn about how to play the game of life well, understand trauma.

Ending

Hope the above notes helped.