Since starting this website, I have received the following questions:
- How traumatic memories are stored in the brain?
- How traumatic memories hide in the brain?
- Where are traumatic memories stored in the brain?
- How memories of traumatic events are triggered?
- What triggers traumatic memories?
- Why do we forget traumatic events?
- What is traumatic memory distortion?
- Are trauma-memories reliable?
- Can PTSD cause false memories?
Thank you for those writing in, and to answer all those questions, here is the article written just for you: “How traumatic memories are stored, triggered and are they reliable“.
How traumatic memories are stored in the brain? Implicit memory is where memories of what to do, how to react and how to behave are stored. The traumatic events are stored in implicit memory (as known as non-declarative memory).
How memories of traumatic events are triggered? During traumatic event, many sites, sounds, smells, or other cues that get associated with that event in your mind. These cues become triggers that can lead you to have the same intense reaction to them that you had during the original event. That’s, your post-traumatic stress disorder appears to be a disaster of a memory going wrong.
Are trauma-memories reliable? Unless there is external corroborating evidence, no one can say for sure. Trauma-memories are often emotionally-charged and highly focused on survival. This, and the stresses during the events, can produce disjointed or distorted memories.
How Traumatic Memories Are Stored
Short-term memory and long-term-memory
Memories are important because it allows us to remember things about ourselves, our values, our history, and the world around us. Some of that memory will naturally fade in time, while other memory stays in the fore-front of our minds much longer. There are four main types of memory, and the first types are:
- short-term memory: For things that needed to be remembered quickly and for just a short time eg. a phone number, or an access code etc
- long-term memory: For things that need to be permanently stored. It would appear that trauma-memories are sometimes stored in the long-term memory despite the person didn’t make an effort to remember the details.
Explicit or declarative memory and implicit or non-declarative memory
- explicit or declarative memory: For things like factual information, theories, ideas and concepts. It also includes structures and patterns so that memories could be recalled in a coherent way
- implicit or non-declarative memory: For things like learned behavior and automatic reactive responses. This is also where traumatic memories are stored.
Additionally, some memories are textual and verbal, but other memories are visual, auditory, or emotional or a mixture of these. It seems that when memories are overwhelmingly traumatic, the brain looses its ability to store the trauma-memories in words.
Instead, the trauma-memory is stored pictorially together with all the emotions and physical sensations that were experienced during the traumatic events. This includes the sights, sounds, smells, textures etc that are associated with that event.
How Memories of Traumatic Events
Are Triggered
The additional information such as sights, sounds, smells, textures etc that are associated with the traumatic event then becomes triggers that brings the traumatic event back to the fore-front of our minds — and along with it: all the nasty emotions and physical reactions too. That is why some call intrusive traumatic-memories a piece of memory that has been filed in the wrong place.
Sometimes it is easy to notice how closely related the triggers are to the trauma experienced. But other times, the connections are harder to identify. That is why many who suffers from Complex PTSD may have a hard time making sense of their symptoms and triggers.
Are Trauma-Memories Reliable?
Since trauma-memories are memories of traumatic events filed in the wrong place in the brain’s memory system, it follows that the memories retained or later on retrieved is unlikely to be 100% accurate. In fact, for that level of accuracy, few of us can guarantee our memories of whatever event is absolutely flawless.
An ethical, knowledgeable and experienced trauma therapist will listen to your story without judging you or leading you with further questions or telling you that all the traumatic events happened in just the same way you remember it.
When it comes to trauma-memories, they come in all shapes and sizes:
- Some traumatic memories are permanently engraved into your mind
- Other memories of traumatic events may be repressed and hidden
- Still trauma-memories are locked away only verbally; but the pictorial memories and emotional memories are exceptionally vivid.
- You may have clear memory of what it felt like at the time and your body physically responds to the stress as if you were in that trauma again, but the factual details are lost, forgotten or dissociated.
Our brains do not store information in the same way as a film on a YouTube channel. 100% recall of every detail is almost impossible. That is true whether the memory is traumatic or not. That said, sometimes, what is left in the memory is so fragmented and yet so outrageously horrific and wrong that it is hard to believe it is true. If that’s how you feel, look for independent corroborating evidence.
- Is there newspaper reports about the event?
- Were there eye witnesses?
- Did your interaction and personal relationship with other people change as a result of that?
- Did anyone notice something, and asked you about it at the time?
- Are there any medical records that can confirm some details for you?
Just because there’s no way we are going to remember everything little detail, if it is your wish to put the fragmented trauma-memories back into a coherent order, it is certainly possible to make huge progress in this regard.
Related Questions
What is traumatic memory processing? Traumatic memory processing is a therapeutic intervention where the client is helped to reorganize the traumatic memories, emotions, feelings along with and factual information with a goal to store the traumatic memory in a coherent manner (or processed), thereby preventing traumatic memories from becoming intrusive.
How to recover repressed memories?
- Find an experienced trauma therapist. Here’s therapist vetting checklist: “How to test if the therapist is suitable for you“?
- Engage in psycho-education, so that you know some of the terms that trauma specialists use.
- Relax and be reassured that you are not going crazy. In fact, your brain is doing what it’s supposed to do when you are in an overwhelmingly traumatic situation.