Reboot Your Relationship by Rebooting your Nervous System and Trauma Looping Effect - Joe Vim Whitcomb, PsyDc, LMFT Author, Licensed Psychotherapist, (Neuroscience of Relationships, Emotionally Focused Couple Therapist, Relationship and Trauma Specialist, Educator and Experiential Intensive Developer, etc) 1. A Dangerous World Feedback Loop Synonyms: Magnifying Triggers Feedback Loop, Multiplying Triggers Feedback Loop, Environmental Triggers Feedback Loop, Increasing Sensitivity Downward Spiral, Vortex This feedback loop occurs when we have experienced trauma, and we happen to be in an environment that continuously triggers memories of the trauma. If constantly triggered, we can be reminded of the trauma and automatically feel fear over and over again, which makes the environment around us seem more frightening, and we end up imprinting the idea of trauma more and more deeply onto the environment. Seeing increasingly more danger makes us more likely to experience triggers, and makes the triggers more impactful when they come (Nervous system hijack (Fight, Flight, Freeze). It’s not just the perception of the environment as more and more dangerous that increases the impact of the triggers. Being triggered a lot can gradually increase our sensitivity and raise our overall level of hyperarousal. In turn, feeling more sensitive increases the impact of the triggers. In this scenario, all levels of danger are perceived as a red alert – there are no orange and yellow alerts; danger is stuck on High setting which is what makes it so impactful. Basically if the triggers are so impactful, the triggers become new traumatic experiences, which then have new triggers associated with them, continuously multiplying all the stimuli that are impacting the nervous system from the external environment. Instead of developing the capacity to manage the triggers so that they will gradually diminish in their power, one’s helplessness and reactivity make the triggers more and more traumatizing. There are more traumatic experiences to flash back to, and also cumulatively, as time passes, one has more and more experiences of danger in the world, making the world a more dangerous place every day. This feedback loop is one reason it is so important to get to an environment that gives some relief from triggers, or change the environment (get rid of furniture, redecorate, put new scents in the air etc.). If the amount of stress puts the system into immobility more and more frequently, this feedback loop can lead to the Immobility Downward Spiral – getting increasingly immobile e.g. feeling numb, unresponsive, still, paralyzed. I noticed this Dangerous World Feedback Loop and Immobility Downward Spiral happening early on in my experience of PTSD. This is an illustration that shows how too many triggers can feel like an invasion, or a kind of poison that is constantly being inserted into the brain and nervous system, causing the mind to go into meltdown or immobility on a regular basis.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 23:31:44 +0000