Trauma fundamentally alters how the brain and body encode your experience, by locking the nervous system into a rigid recorded, recurring pattern of unconsciousness. Troubling events often encode, convert information, data, or messages into a specific, usually secret or standardized feedback loop for storage, transmission, or security, a persistent physiological thought loop, your mind keeps NOT the standard, time-bound linear memory we generally operate with. Neurologically trauma imprints our memories often bypassing the brain’s standard memory-processing centers, which causes them to be recalled as vivid, disconnected mental intrusions such as flashbacks or nightmares, rather than a typical autobiographical memory.
Our nervous system frequently stores trauma somatically, in the body, rather than just the mind and manifests as physical patterns like unexplained pain, chronic muscle tension, hyper-vigilance, and or a persistent automatic stimulus responses of fight, flight, freeze or stagnate, sacrifice the self reaction.
Unconscious attempts to gain mastery over old wounds and traumas, individuals may experience what Alice Miller calls the “compulsion to repeat” as an unconscious drive to replay past childhood traumas or dynamic patterns in life.
People unconsciously do this to desperately keep the original painful memories repressed while attempting to finally “win” resolve or change the outcome of their experience. Again unconsciously Miller posited that victims of abuse or emotional neglect seek out situations or people that mirror their early suffering. By replaying the trauma, the person attempts to keep the memory of the original pain completely repressed and hidden from their conscious mind, consciously hoping for a pleasant experience and outcome.
Their unexpressed unowned rage and anger, about their trauma, abandonment and or powerlessness results in their unconscious self-destructive, masochistic, reactive behaviors and the most devastating is handing down the traditions of their abuse to any children they have power and control over. Parents who were never allowed to express their own rage or grief from their childhood unconsciously reenact the emotional abuse, rejection, abandonment and behavior patterns they experienced.
When adults find themselves in toxic relationships or traumatic loops like constantly seeking the approval of a critical, emotionally unavailable partner, boss or friend, they are generally subconsciously trying to consciously own and make sense of the original event and change the outcome to finally receive the unconditional love, mirroring and validation they were denied.
True freedom from this cycle comes when an individual allows themselves to feel the long-buried anger and grief of early childhood, past life traumas and or being a member of a generational Illuminist family as Alice was.
Recognizing consciously these ingrained reactions as protective, automated responses is the first critical step toward breaking the cycle. Various healing modalities and therapies address how these events got lodge in the nervous system are helpful.
Some consider Dark Ones as being spoiled, but many were traumatized and are acting out their rage, anger and powerlessness. They are emotionally unbalanced and unconsciously running their rigid recorded, recurring patterns, cycles and feedback loops to “protect” themselves from their past time victimizations.