By Monique Wooley
Daily stress doesn’t just cause anxiety or hypertension, it can keep the brain and body in a heightened state for months or even years. When your nervous system is repeatedly activated by family conflict, money problems, grief, divorce, job insecurity, health threats, police brutality, or the fear of losing housing, memory can become unreliable because problem solving and attention gets diverted toward survival.
When you’re constantly worried, or pre-occupied with overwhelming thoughts, your brain may not register details enough to store them. You may remember the feeling of anxiousness, or being overwhelmed more than the “facts” of what was said, or what day it happened.
Stress can make it harder to focus, listen, read, or juggle multiple tasks at once. When that happens, it often becomes tougher to hold information in your mind, so remembering it later may be unreliable.
This type of stress can also make sleep less consistent or less restful, and sleep plays an important role in how memories are formed and stored. On top of that, financial worries, caregiving stress, and ongoing work pressure can keep your mind busy with problem-solving and worry, leaving less space to take in new information and retrieve it later. Over time, repeated stress responses in the body can affect the hippocampus, a brain area that supports making and recalling memories.
If you have struggled with brain fog, gaps in time during intense periods, missing instructions, appointments, or bills, confusion between past and present or if you find yourself in a repeat learning phase, it may be steaming from “trauma induced memory loss”.
Triggers
Then there’s triggers. Examples: A sudden scream from a playful event, a car horn, or people in a heated argument or disagreement that has no connection with a person who suffers from traumatic memory loss, may cause igniting triggers. Even certain smells or events like stepping into a certain establishment such as a courthouse or the sight of a police car can also cause triggers.
A different example: I have a dear friend who recalls the traumatic impact of watching news clips of the St Petersburg bridge collapsing in 1980 as a young girl. Her family was some how indirectly affected by this event. The high intensity of years past household conversations, and the lasting effects that it left on family closest to her, has caused direct trauma induced memory loss that has filtered over into her now adult life. To this very day she breaks out into hives, losses all focus and memory at the very mention of a bridge or at the very sight of a bridge, even if it’s on a GPS system. She can not drive long distances alone. She can not recall the most simplest task when faced with the adversity of traveling across a bridge.
For people who are victims of violent crimes, they will suffer in cases where they can recall acts of trauma, but may not be able to recall the details because they simply “can’t remember” fully. This can also trigger trauma-linked fragments such as sudden panic, intrusive images-sensations, or emotional reactions that make it feel like the past is happening again. Sometimes the mind avoids full recall because it’s too activating, especially when life seems to prove the feeling of being unsafe.
So when you are in contact with someone who shows signs of trauma related memory loss, it’s not a laughing matter or a chance to insert a witty joke at their demise, or starting rumors that holds no value. Remember, this is a real diagnosis that requires understanding, patience, mental health treatment and support. We don’t know the aspects or dynamics of what people has experienced in their lives, and quite frankly, it’s just not our business. But if we should happen to recognize signs or if sacred information is shared with us, we have the God-given opportunity to do the right thing. Understanding that non of us are exempt. This can also happen to anyone of us at anytime in life.
What you can do as a caring friend, colleague or family member: I suggest you read the book by: Bessel van der Kolk, MD “Regaining Memory”. In order to gain insight and ideas of possible resources.
Be supportive by gently suggesting specific therapy resources with that information on hand.
Otherwise, here are encouraging ways to protect memory after traumatic memory loss:
Stabilize your sleep: Aim for consistent sleep/wake times. If sleep is disrupted by grief/anxiety, treating that (even partially) often improves attention and memory. Reduce cognitive overload.
Break tasks down, use one “source of truth” (one calendar/one task app), and limit multitasking. Stress plus multitasking is a common recipe for forgetting.
Create “stress buffers” for high-risk days: During job loss, housing threats, or family conflict, protect memory by using reminders for everything (meds, bills, deadlines) and preparing lists in advance.
Adopt a regular exercise routine even if it’s just 15-20 minutes daily. A brisk walk or bike ride outside or shutting the phone off for a yoga mat routine of meditation, stretching and breathing.
When to get extra help urgently
If memory loss is sudden, severe, or includes confusion/disorientation, or if you’re worried about safety, it’s important to seek medical help. And if the memory loss is tied to trauma symptoms (intrusions, shutdown, panic), a mental health professional can help.
Memory tends to improve when you feel safer. Techniques like slow breathing (inhale 4, exhale 6), or a short calming routine before trying to “remember” can reduce the brain-fog effect, having a cup of tea from your favorite tea cup, a short walk outside or humming a favorite melody may be helpful.
Prayer and your Faith should always be a daily practice in healing.
