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- Christine Blasey Ford testifies before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate Thursday.
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- Win McNamee / Getty Images
- As Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about alleged sexual assault in high school by Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh, we examined some of the ways in which trauma can affect memories.
- Traumatic memories are not stored in the same way as other memories.
- Research shows that they are more intense, persistent and impossible to put into words.
Christine Blasey Ford said she did not want to bring forward decades-old allegations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh. Instead, she felt that she had to do it.
"I'm here because I believe my civic duty is to tell you what happened while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school," Ford said Thursday during an affidavit. before members of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate.
Kavanaugh, meanwhile, continued to say that the charges of sexual assault – from Ford and others – were false, and nothing more than "smears" intended to derail his appointment.
But science suggests that he remembers much less what happened in the summer of 1982 than Ford.
Putting aside for a moment the details of the case and what actually happened in a suburb of Maryland, the truth is that any sexual assault can have lasting effects on the brain, body and mind. memories of an event.
Here's what we know about how sexual trauma can affect a person's body and brain, according to the latest research and experts working with trauma survivors.
Our memories are imperfect, human devices
Neuroscientists have not fully understood how our brain works.
It is impossible to find a specific place where a memory lands and lives in our gray matter, because the brain acts more like a network than a binder. We know that an area of the brain, called the hippocampus, participates in tracking our memories.
In a state of strong emotion, such as an attack or aggression, the stress hormones we release can strengthen the connections in this region of the brain, even by increasing nerve cell extensions (dendrites) and leading to chronic hyper-vigilance. .
The body has some options when it is presented with a threat like this: freeze, fly or fight.
The heart accelerates and we breathe quickly, preparing us to fight, run or hide. Blood can begin to flow to the ends as we prepare.
Memories of this "high emotional intensity" period may have some sort of "improved coding," which makes them more prominent and clear, as the researchers wrote in a 2018 article in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association.
A deluge of long-term effects
Studies show that survivors of sexual assault can suffer all sorts of disturbing health effects. They have demonstrated higher rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes, gastrointestinal problems (such as irritable bowel syndrome), depression, and chronic pain. Trauma survivors may even be less inclined to seek preventive care because everything from routine tooth cleaning to pelvic examination can be a new trauma experience.
David Emerson, a yoga teacher at the Justice Resource Institute Trauma Center in Massachusetts, has studied how yoga can help survivors of trauma by reconnecting with their bodies. He said that there were essentially two ways for trauma victims to recall memories. One is explicit – the memories for which we have words and that we can share with others. The other type of memory is a more implicit form.
"Implicit memories are things we do not have words for but our body knows," Emerson told Business Insider. "Our bodies will react, but we may not have language for what is happening, we may stop, or we may withdraw, we could go wild, whatever the answer. There may be no language, but it would be considered a traumatic memory.
The ways in which implicit memory works within our bodies are still not fully understood, he said, "but there seems to be a distinction between traumatic memories and non-traumatic memories."
When we are reminded of a traumatic memory, it often triggers a kind of flashback and a physical reaction.
"It's all your body that remembers the experience," Emerson said.
Often, the most persistent and persistent memories of a traumatic event come in the form of feelings, tastes and sounds. This is what Ford remembers most of the night of his alleged attack.
"The details concerning this night that bring me here today are the ones I will never forget," Ford said in a speech prepared Thursday. "They have been etched in my memory and have haunted me, especially as an adult."
In her testimony, Ford mentioned the sound of laughter as what she remembered most about the alleged incident.
"The laughs are indelible in the hippocampus," Ford said Thursday. "The shameful laughter between the two [boys] and they have fun at my expense.
This corresponds to what we know about the power of a traumatic memory.
"These kinds of things seem to be incredibly persistent – more reliable than narrative memory," said Emerson.
Trauma is more difficult when you feel helpless
Many psychologists and therapists assume that the best way to treat a trauma is to talk about it. But often, there is really no reward for victims of sexual assault who choose to treat their traumas aloud. For many, it is better to remain silent, voiceless and keep those hidden memories.
Prior to Thursday's hearing, 85-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg spoke about the problem.
"Every woman in my vintage does not have a story but many stories," she told a crowd of law students in Georgetown on Wednesday. "But we thought you could not do anything about it – the boys will be boys – so find a way out."
In other words, the effects of feeling stuck and unable are far more important than a neurobiological problem. Trauma is not always something that happens in the nervous system of one person. It can be rooted in a culture.
"The abuse of power is so pervasive and so obvious and so constant," said Emerson. "In the past, pushing back this power was a futile exercise."
He thinks we see some of the early signs that this is no longer the case, as for Ford's testimony.
"People are feeling the impact of chronic abuse of power," he said. "But for some reason, some people have access to [say] & # 39; No more. It will not happen anymore. "
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