After traumatic amnesia? Nothing will be the same again
Phase 2 — Reactivation of Traumatic Memory (My testimony)
> Listen to the audio version of this article on my Youtube channel : https://youtu.be/9ZhLxwJ3USU?si=xTa8SnIschKd5OIZ
Hi, I’m Amandine Mas, a trauma informed coach specializing in releasing buried childhood emotions. In this second article, I’ll talk about the little-known way in which we truly uncover our childhood traumas.
It’s crucial to address this phase of traumatic memory reactivation, because it’s often when we resist what we feel and find ourselves even more isolated in our shame and guilt.
Why is that? Because…
….When amnesia begins to lift, traumatic memories (which were buried) resurface more frequently as uncontrolled memories, because they are not integrated into the brain. They show up as emotional flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety or panic attacks. They make us relive the violence we experienced identically, often without images, but with the same sensations and emotions as when we were children.
In this case, our first conditioned human reflex is to resist, to control everything, and to keep it all inside us, as if nothing had ever happened. As if, by the greatest of mysteries, we had invented everything….
That’s what I did from May to December 2020.
I did everything in my power to resist these new emotions that I didn’t understand, every single time my new partner talked about his 8-year-old daughter.
This child reminded me of my childhood, which I had forgotten for 35 years, when I entered traumatic amnesia.
It was as if the light suddenly shined on the darkness of my childhood. It was as if the light came back on in this hotel room where I was assaulted at the age of 5. It was as if the light came back on right at the moment when my heart and my body shut down, when my innocence ended in the greatest silence.
And when the light suddenly came back on 35 years later, I was unable to talk about it, to accept this little girl and to open my heart to her (which amplified my shame and my guilt of not being a woman like the others).
I entered a very rapid downward spiral. It was like unreal.
I was haunted by my childhood which settled into my life like a ghost, and I have no words for it. And when I painfully managed to articulate something, it didn’t sound credible enough to get support from my close ones who didn’t react.
Destructive thoughts started playing on a loop in my head like:
“It’s not possible to feel this 35 years later”, “I must be mistaken, it doesn’t make sense”, “Why didn’t I talk about it sooner if it was true?”
Now, I know it’s TRUE and POSSIBLE to feel these emotions 35 years later because childhood trauma can remain trapped in traumatic memory for a lifetime, if we don’t listen to it. It’s like an endlessly crying child inside.
So what is a traumatic memory ?
It’s an extraordinary survival mechanism that traps our memory in time and space, triggering when we face situations that remind us of our trauma.
In my case, it really was like a ghost from the past haunting my adult life. This ghost was invisible and everywhere at once. It didn’t exist to anyone and yet, still made many decisions for me.
And when this ghost was here (meaning as soon as my partner talked about his daughter), I was immediately plunged into my past, which apparently hadn’t passed.
I felt powerless, inadequate, and inappropriate for months.
Because I was ashamed to tell Shamez (my partner) that I relived my trauma’s emotions every time he talked about his daughter, I retreated into my favorite social mask: the strong woman, the warrior, the party girl…
But behind the mask, my fears consumed me.
A triggering event made me surrender.
At the end of 2020, Shamez and I finally committed to a serious relationship. We took our first trip in the islands, the pinnacle of romance for me. He finally asked me the inevitable question:
“Amandine, when are you available to meet my daughter?”
Freeze-frame. Something inside me stops. This “innocent question catapults me out of my cloud. My body tenses up until it hurts.
But of course, I find a way to hide my distress. I wouldn’t reveal my vulnerability for anything in the world. So my first response is very diplomatic:
“Yes, of course, Shamez, I totally understand”
But inside, I’m in TOTAL PANIC. All the indicators on my dashboard (my nervous system) are red. I’m overwhelmed by intense anxiety and shame for not being like those women who accept another’s child without problems. I feel like I’m fainting, dying, drifting away…
My traumatic memory is activated.
This is shock.
It’s an automatic survival reflex that turns me into a statue in a split second. I’m unable to speak, move, think, scream, or flee. It’s like an explosion in my brain, a bomb going off in my entire body. Like a bug in a computer.
I don’t yet know that I’m reliving the shock I felt when I was sexually assaulted at age 5.
I don’t yet know that this state of shock and other PTSD symptoms will multiply over the next 4 years because I resist, A LOT, pretending nothing happened.
I don’t yet know that I will experience flashbacks and panic attacks, which are the emotions my brain couldn’t handle as a child, each time my partner will mention his daughter.
I don’t yet understand this unsettling sensation of being split between 2 parts of myself that don’t know each other:
… Between Amandine, the 37-year-old woman, confident in the relationship she’s building, seeing no problem in meeting this little girl
… And Amandine, the 5-year-old child, traumatized, suffering in silence, reactivating repressed fears of dying
I’m “hijacked” by a part of me that suddenly emerges from my past.
NOTHING WILL BE THE SAME AGAIN
Until that day Shamez suggested I meet his daughter, I had a well-oiled strategy when overwhelmed by my emotions…
…I only needed to take a good shower, go out with friends, and drink larger quantities of alcohol to regain control over my turbulent inner world.
Now, this strategy no longer works.
From that day, my strong-woman armor, which allowed me to survive, no longer protects me from my childhood emotional suffering.
No matter how much I press the “be strong and shut up!” button, it no longer responds… It’s as if someone took away the shield that protected me from my past fears.
The party is over.
My nervous system gives out in a few weeks. I start crying in public. I can no longer sleep or eat properly. I go out less and less. I’m ashamed of myself. I start having panic attacks in my bed. I even vomit after conversations about his happy daughter.
For weeks, I’m shaken by intense feelings of insecurity, abandonment, jealousy, fear, and numbness throughout my body. Out of shame, I continue to remain silent.
But the verdict is clear. I must meet his daughter soon.
Crushed by the pain of these past emotions returning like a boomerang, I collapse, alone, miserable, in my vast apartment.
The lifting of my traumatic amnesia has begun.
I can no longer pretend. I need help to escape my emotional torture.
I finally reach out to therapy and coaching professionals I met in Bangkok. With the help of my new coach and therapist, I manage to meet my lover’s daughter under “decent” conditions, at least in appearance…
… Even though I suffer two panic attacks, before and after our dinner.
This meeting with this little girl points me to the exit from my psychological coma, reopening my unhealed wounds that I need to take care of now.
After this meeting, my body tenses up and my brain panics every time he mentions… even just the name of his daughter. This detail makes my guilt and shame skyrocket.
I am unable to ask about this child, much less meet her again, for fear of showing her my state of overwhelm and panic.
I then enter an advanced avoidance strategy. It’s my BEST way to calm the anxiety raging within me.
The simple fact that this child exists in my partner’s life makes me regress into my own unhealed childhood.
It weakens me daily, because I know that people around me don’t understand and don’t believe me, thinking that I am crazy, or selfish.
Nevertheless, this avoidance strategy will allow me to heal.
My new reality is clear:
My body can’t accept that this child exists. It’s not ready to remember what it had experienced at that little girl’s age.
It’s as if my body commands me not to meet this little girl, for now.
It’s an inappropriate reaction, in society, but it prevents my brain from breaking down again. Avoidance allows me to reduce my panic attacks and to take care, in priority, of the petrified little girl still alive inside me.
This is what is called a survival strategy.
According to PTSD specialists, intense fears and stress from traumatic experiences can cause heart attacks due to adrenaline and cortisol surges in the brain, if we don’t find a way to dissociate from the pain (even temporarily).
That’s why we create multiple strategies throughout our lives to divert ourselves from overwhelming emotions.
These survival mechanisms soothe us in the short term, but don’t heal the wound of our trauma injuries in the long term.
These survival mechanisms keep us, as their name says, in survival mode. They’re like temporary crutches.
But at some point, if the survival mechanism has been used for too long, the elastic becomes too stretched, snaps back, and hits us in the face…
… Until we consciously set up, with the help of trusted people, an emotional resilience process to recreate a state of inner balance, by cultivating new skills and new emotions of safety, confidence, self-esteem…
This is what I will share with you in the next episode of this podcast, and it’s precisely what I would have loved to hear at that time.
My message for today is:
It’s crucial to seek help from trusted people. Whether friends, family members, professionals, it doesn’t matter; you choose who you want to confide in to free yourself and relearn how to live differently after the trauma.
Please, don’t wait 4 years like I did…
It’s essential to reclaim your power to CHOOSE what is good for you.
Since trauma is the consequence of a lack of choice, one of its antidotes is to relearn to choose the people, as well as the activities, habits, and virtuous practices that support your resilience.
… The most important thing is to find YOUR best way to listen to that child who cries inside you, to welcome and console them until they stop crying, without ever telling them to shut up again, as we often do, out of loyalty to our emotionally constipated and traumatized society.
This is what we will do together in the next episode:
Lifting Trauma — Phase 3: Transforming Suffering into Meaning, how to welcome, soothe, and integrate your past consciously, to open a new chapter in your life: your post-trauma life, which holds so many beautiful surprises for you.
> In the meantime, I invite you to book your free consultation with me if you are ready to see how trauma informed coaching can help you find your best solutions, which are already there, inside you.
Amandine Mas — Emotions and Writing Coach on https://www.instagram.com/amandine_emotional_freedom
🧚♂️ Discover the 4-Step Emotional Coaching Programm “From Trauma to Love” : https://amandinemas.com/from-trauma-to-love-coaching/
🧚♂️ If you are an Entrepreneur, Coach or Healer discover the Emotional and Creative Coaching Program “From Trauma to Genius : https://amandinemas.com/from-trauma-to-genius-coaching/
🧚♂️ Downlaod for free my book “From Wounded to Empowered — A guide to live better with your emotions, your intuitions and in your relationships using a simple notebook” : https://amandinemas.com/download_from_wounded_to_empowered_book
🧚♂️ Watch my videos and podcasts on Youtybe : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZRwLALL7PnYn5qVfUgmPyw
Sources and References:
- American Psychological Association: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) website
- International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies: Understanding PTSD website
- National Institute of Mental Health: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder website
- van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin Books.
- Murielle Salmona, french psychiatrist, founder in 2009 of the Traumatic Memory Association, an organization for workers caring for victims of violence (in particular sexual violence, domestic violence, children violence, and terrorism violence).
