Memory, Triggers and Why Trauma Feels Like It’s Still Happening

One of the most distressing aspects of trauma is how present it feels — even years later.

When I work with clients with trauma, they often say:

“I know it’s not happening now, but it feels like it is.”

Trauma memories are stored differently

Ordinary memories are stored with a sense of time and context. Traumatic memories often are not.

Instead, they’re stored as:

• Sensations

• Images

• Emotions

• Body states

  
  

This is why a smell, tone of voice, or situation can suddenly trigger a strong reaction.

Triggers are not overreactions

Triggers are associations, not choices.

Your nervous system doesn’t ask:

“Is this logical?”

It asks:

“Is this familiar danger?”

When I work with clients with trauma, understanding this often brings enormous relief. It replaces self-blame with compassion.

I recently heard Dr. Gabor Mate explain:

"When trauma gets triggered, you don't act your age, you act the age that the wound was created"

Given that we dont always know where our trauma triggers come from - this enlightening insight, is worth reflecting on when we have been triggered - ask ourselves

"How old did I feel?"

Our nervous system becomes overwhelmed at the point of trauma and replicates this when we are triggered.

To summarise and put simply - A trigger is not an overreaction.

It is your nervous system recognising similarity to an unresolved experience and responding to it.

The modern overuse of the term "being triggered"

Unfortunately, in modern society, language is sensationalist and polar meaning that words can become misused, exaggerated and ultimately their meaning becomes diminished.

If you fall down a social media rabbit hole, you may find yourself re-emerging from it wondering why everybody is now a narcissist? How every difference of perspective or disagreement means that someone is gaslighting you? and come away with a fully diagnosed condition of PTSD based "These 4 key signs that you've got PTSD".

Sadly pop-psychology has over simplified complex conditions through accessible un-qualified content aimed at people in times of need to feel seen and understood. Through this overuse and misunderstanding of terms linked to conditions "being triggered" is often thrown around when someone feels uncomfortable about something that another has called them out on.

A trigger is when your body is thrown into 2 time zones at once - Due to a stimuli -externally, you are here and now, internally you are back when that bad thing happened and its very difficult to logic your way out of it.

How EMDR therapy helps

EMDR can help you separate out those two dimensions and work towards de-sensitising that thing that happened in the past.

Will you ever forget it? - No

Will you ever be able to turn back time to have not gone through it in the first place? No

Can you update your memory networks to change how you look back on it? Yes!

Will this remove its power and file it away so that you are no longer triggered by reminders - Absolutely!

When I work with clients with trauma, I often describe EMDR as helping the brain update old information.

Traumatic memories are often stored as:

• “I’m not safe”

• “I have no control”

• “It was my fault”

  
  

EMDR allows these memories to move from being emotionally charged and present to being remembered without re-living.