There is an annoying thing about trauma responses.

They make perfect sense right up until they don’t.

Actually, that’s not quite true.

They usually make perfect sense to the nervous system.

It’s the rest of us standing around asking:

Why the hell am I doing this?

In my last piece, I wrote about constantly apologizing, poor sleep, needing noise in the room, night terrors, and some of the other charming little souvenirs trauma has left scattered around my brain.

The captain need not apologize for the storm.

Unfortunately, someone apparently forgot to send that memo to my nervous system.

Because my nervous system remains convinced that there is a storm coming.

Even when the sky is blue.

That’s one of the things I think we sometimes misunderstand about PTSD and trauma.

We tend to focus on triggers.

Something happens.

The person is reminded of the traumatic event.

They have a reaction.

Nice, neat, linear.

Stimulus → trauma memory → response.

Very clinical.

Very tidy.

Very unlike actual human beings.

Trauma responses don’t always wait for an obvious trigger.

Sometimes the response becomes part of how you move through the world.

You apologize before anyone is angry.

You listen for changes in someone’s voice.

You notice doors.

You notice exits.

You notice footsteps.

You sleep lightly.

You wake up frequently.

You keep something playing in the background because silence somehow doesn’t feel quite right.

And you may not even realize you’re doing any of it.

For someone who spent much of his professional life in healthcare, there’s an interesting irony here.

Healthcare teaches us to look for symptoms.

Find the symptom.

Find the cause.

Treat the cause.

Reassess.

Congratulations. Medicine.

Except human beings aren’t algorithms.

And brains that have spent years learning that something bad might happen don’t necessarily abandon that lesson simply because someone finally says:

You’re safe now.

That’s wonderful.

The amygdala would apparently like that statement submitted in triplicate with supporting documentation.

Processing time is approximately six to eight years.

Please hold.

That’s the part I’ve been learning.

Intellectually knowing that something is safe and actually feeling safe are two very different things.

I can look around my house and know perfectly well that nobody is coming through the door.

I can know that the dogs are asleep.

I can know there is no immediate threat.

I can know that the noise coming from the television is eight hours of some poor bastard reading bedtime stories while rain falls gently against a fictional window.

Everything is fine.

Meanwhile, somewhere inside my brain:

DEFCON 2.

And perhaps that’s where a little grace becomes necessary.

Not an excuse.

Grace.

There is a difference.

Trauma doesn’t absolve us of responsibility for what we do.

If I hurt someone, PTSD isn’t a magical “Get Out of Accountability Free” card.

I’m still responsible for my behavior.

I’m still responsible for recognizing unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I’m still responsible for getting help when I need it.

I’m still responsible for steering the ship.

But maybe I don’t have to be angry with myself because the alarm system occasionally goes off when nobody is breaking into the building.

Maybe instead of asking,

What the hell is wrong with me?

the better question is,

What taught my brain that it needed to do this?

And then:

Do I still need it?

Some responses probably protected me once.

Some helped me survive situations I couldn’t immediately escape.

Some were reinforced over years.

That doesn’t mean I need to carry all of them forever.

It also doesn’t mean I can simply order them to disappear.

Brains are inconvenient that way.

So I’m trying something different.

I’m noticing them.

The apology that didn’t need to be made.

The light left on.

The television playing in an otherwise empty room.

The moment I scan a situation that doesn’t actually require scanning.

The storm warning when there isn’t a cloud in sight.

And instead of immediately judging myself for it, I’m trying to recognize it for what it is.

An old alarm.

A nervous system doing what it learned to do.

Sometimes badly.

Sometimes unnecessarily.

Sometimes at 2:00 in the goddamn morning.

But perhaps healing isn’t convincing yourself that there will never be another storm.

Maybe it’s slowly teaching yourself that you don’t have to live every sunny day preparing for one.

And apparently, my nervous system is going to need that memo more than once. ▌