Remember what you did yesterday. Unless yesterday was particularly
emotional, your memory is an orderly sequence of words, pictures, and sen-
sations that tell you the ongoing story of your life. You may remember get-
ting up out of a warm bed into a cold room, looking out the window to
see if it was raining, then walking toward the shower, and so forth. If you
pay close attention, you’ll notice that ordinary days are stored mostly as
words, with a few pictures and sensations thrown in for spice, like photos
in a newspaper article. By and large, ordinary memories are a linguistic
experience.
Now, remember the most stressful, annoying, or frightening thing
that happened last week. You’ll notice that emotional events are stored dif-
ferently than the mundane stuff: less words and more pictures. The New
York Timesof daily existence suddenly becomes the National Enquirer,
complete with sensational though not completely objective illustrations
and conclusions.
Now, think back to a similar stressor that happened at least two
years ago. More like Reader’s Digest, isn’t it?
Normal memories are digested by the brain, turned into concise,
orderly stories, and filed away according to person, place, and time.
Emotional events still stand out, but not in the way they did when they
were current events. This is the normal way memories are processed.
The experiences that cause PTSD are like electrical surges that blow
circuits in the hippocampus. The connection with higher brain centers
goes out; language and reasoning are disconnected. There are no words
to explain the experience, and no sense of person, place, or time. All that’s
stored are raw, unconnected video clips that buzz and crackle with jolts
of live emotion. The stuff of nightmares.
The squeal of brakes changes Trish’s world. One minute she’s
pretty much normal, but the moment she hears that sound,
even from a distance, she’s back there at the instant of impact.
She sees the pickup coming at her, the driver mouthing words. She
feels a rush of adrenaline, and is absolutely certain that she’s
going to die. The seat belt grasps her as the truck hits. More
adrenaline. Burning coffee from her travel mug sprays every-80 ❧Explosions into Fear