When your body remembers what your mind has moved on from.
Have you ever found yourself reacting to something much more strongly than you expected? Perhaps someone raises their voice, and you immediately feel tense or it makes you jump, or you visit somewhere you haven’t been for years and suddenly feel uncomfortable. It might be a smell, a piece of music, a particular time of year or even the way somebody speaks to you. Sometimes the connection is obvious, but other times you’re left wondering why on earth you feel the way you do, and you just can’t shake it off. We tend to think of memories as things we consciously remember. We can recall what happened, who was there and how we felt at the time, but our experiences can also influence the way our body responds to things, particularly if we have been through something frightening, distressing or overwhelming.
Our nervous system is constantly taking in information from around us and making very quick judgements about whether we are safe or not. Most of this happens without us consciously thinking about it. If something in the present resembles something that was associated with danger in the past, our body can respond before we’ve had time to work out what has triggered it. Our heart might start beating faster, our muscles tense, our stomach churn or we might suddenly feel an overwhelming need to get away from the situation. Your brain takes in the information around it and thinks, “ahh, I’ve got a response for that somewhere,” if it recognises any external stimuli.
The difficult part is that we might logically know there is nothing to be frightened of. The experience could have happened years ago and we may genuinely feel that we have moved on from it. This can make the physical reaction confusing and sometimes frustrating. People often tell themselves that they ‘should be over it by now’, particularly if they have already talked about what happened or feel that they have dealt with it.
However, understanding something and having an automatic physical response to something are not quite the same thing. Different parts of the brain are involved in these processes. The prefrontal cortex helps us think logically, make sense of what is happening and recognise that we are safe, while areas involved in detecting threat, including the amygdala, can respond much more quickly and automatically. This is why you can consciously know that you are safe, yet still experience a racing heart, tense muscles or that sudden feeling that something isn’t quite right. The thinking part of your brain may understand that the danger has passed, while your threat-detection system has already sounded the alarm.
These responses don’t necessarily have to be dramatic either. You might notice that you avoid certain situations without really knowing why, feel uneasy around particular people or become anxious at the same time each year. Sometimes people notice that their mood changes around the anniversary of a difficult event before they have even consciously remembered that the date is approaching. It’s also important not to assume that every uncomfortable feeling has a hidden meaning. We don’t need to analyse every racing heart, tense shoulder or bad day in search of something from our past. However, if you notice the same reaction happening repeatedly, it can be helpful to become curious about it.
Rather than asking yourself, ‘What is wrong with me?’, you might notice what was happening just before the feeling appeared. Was there a particular sound, conversation, person or situation? Does the feeling seem familiar? Have you experienced that same sensation at another point in your life? You don’t need to go digging around trying to uncover memories or forcing yourself to revisit experiences you would rather leave alone, but recognising that sometimes our reactions make more sense when we understand what our body has learned from previous experiences, can be helpful.
Moving on from something doesn’t necessarily mean that it no longer affects us at all. Sometimes our mind knows that the danger has passed while our body is still a little quicker to sound the alarm. With time, understanding and the right support, we can help that alarm system become better at recognising the difference between what happened then and what is happening now.
Hayley McAuley
Psychotherapist
Curious Counselling & Psychotherapy
Photo by notorious v1ruS on Unsplash