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Triggered memories
SAID ALOUD
Triggered memories
Aim. To deepen further your understanding of how trauma responses are triggered.
Trainer. We will now continue with the story. This section helps us to understand triggered memories of trauma. A trigger wakens the memory of trauma. As a spark lights a flame, a trigger wakens the trauma. In trauma work we make a lot of effort to understand and disempower triggers. As you heard, the Butterfly Woman was overwhelmed with memories from the past. Anything that reminded her of the trauma brought her memories back and revived the survival defences that were activated during the original traumatic event. Depending on the situation, she reacted by fight, flight, submission, or freeze. Her nervous system became highly active or turned off completely. Our senses become gateways through which we are reminded of traumas. When something looks like the trauma, sounds, tastes, smells, or feels like the trauma, it triggers the original physical responses and experience.
PART II: THE TRAINING
After a trauma we become especially sensitive to danger, to protect us from a recurring threat. That is appropriate when danger exists, but becomes a problem when we are safe. If a person anticipates danger at all times, her body will be over-alert. This was exactly the stressful situation of the Butterfly Woman. She felt worried and angry, caught between fight and flight. She had problems with sleeping and concentrating. Because her body was using all its energy to anticipate and escape danger, she was exhausted. Without help, she would end up in a state of collapse, her energy depleted, feeling shameful and worthless.
Trauma-memory is unlike ordinary memory. It is linked to our senses, emotions and movement, so experience of trauma memories is very alive. Mostly, trauma-memory is body-memory. This means that we experience it as reactions in the body, while the content and order of the original event may be fragmented and partly forgotten.
We will now demonstrate for you through role play how triggers affect people. It may be useful to keep this exercise in mind when you speak to a survivor who wants or needs to understand herself and her reactions.
Role Play 4. Retelling the story and understanding triggers.( 20 minutes.)
Form pairs and train with each other. One of you is the Helper and the other the Survivor. Sit facing each other on chairs or on the floor. The Survivor can wear a scarf indicating her role. If you are the Helper, start by saying to the Survivor that you want her to listen carefully when you tell her how trauma-reminders trigger trauma-memory in the Butterfly Woman. Before you start, look at Figure 4 on the wall to help you remember. Then tell her about the Butterfly Woman’ s life, how something terrible happened and how trauma-reminders woke up her trauma memories. Use your own words. Remember, don’ t give details of the trauma. Help the Survivor to understand that being triggered is a natural reaction after trauma and that she can get help to reduce the force and frequency of flashbacks.
ROLE PLAY EXERCISE
Remember to come out of your roles. If you are the Survivor, take off your scarf. Physically brush off your role and say:“ Now I’ m not the Helper or the Survivor, I am [ me ]”.