Have you ever noticed that you tend to have an emotional reaction to many events or triggers and then later, sometimes much later, your thinking brain has a response? Why is this?
For people who experienced complex trauma in childhood, this is a common occurrence. In these people, the amygdala (the danger detector) is on a hair-trigger alert. It reacts to sensory information as being dangerous when the amygdala of someone who didn’t experience complex childhood trauma would not. But that’s not the full picture.
When the brain takes in sensory information, it goes to the thalamus first. The thalamus puts it together into a package and sends one package to the amygdala, which we can call the emotional brain, and another sensory package to the prefrontal cortex, what can also call the thinking brain. This is so both parts of the brain can examine the information and determine whether or not there is cause for alarm. In people without the extra-sensitive amygdala, the thinking brain could conclude “this is nothing to worry about” and the emotional brain will be fine with this assessment. The problem arises because the information the thalamus sends has a much quicker route to the emotional brain than to the thinking brain. That means the emotional brain gets this information before the thinking brain. And the amygdala, overly alert to danger, does not take chances, so it screams “red alert!” and initiates a defense response before the thinking part of the brain even has a chance to weigh in. And you may recall that as our nervous system becomes more activated, our thinking brain has less ability to override the emotional brain. The more hyperaroused we become, the less our thinking brain is able to function, leaving the emotional brain in charge. Later, after your nervous system starts to calm down, your thinking brain is able to come back online. And that’s often when you may wonder why you reacted so strongly, or feel embarrassed that you over-reacted, and so on.