hindsight is 20/20

 I am currently reading a book about post traumatic stress and man it is such a breadth of fresh air. It gives so much perspective on so many levels. Any one who has experienced a trauma, whatever sort it may be can relate that most of the time the biggest question we ask our selves and many a times others ask us, why did we let such and such happen. Understanding how our body responds under threat and stress, understanding our emotions and their manifestations, understanding the benefit and survival associated with our emotions and understanding the benefit and survival associated with our defense mechanism goes a long way in explaining to a person what had happened and why it had happened. It is only once one understand why something had happened and why we behaved a certain way that we can go on and let go of the event and change how our body responds every time it feel threatened or how we respond and perceive a situation if it reminds us of the traumatic event in some manner. IT IS A LIBERATING FEELING!!!! once such a thing has been achieved it is like a person is able to breadth again and is no longer a prisoner and at the mercy of their body and their emotions and its reactivity but more in control of how they choose to behave under certain condition.
I plan to write a blog about  PTSD/PTS as soon as I finish my book. One of the questions to consider is that usually a traumatic event is not just an isolated incident that comes and goes and one should just as easily forget about it, in fact the way our brains are wired the way we collect and store memories under stress are pretty much like brandishing the event into the brain so its almost impossible to forget the event, even if one manages to forget the details the body tends to keep score and it will keep manifesting its defenses every time it feels threatened through dissociation, panic attacks, anxiety, shaking, seizures and night mares etc. So it is important to associate the body's implicit memory with the brains explicit memory and make sense of the events.
It is a mistake to consider a traumatic event as a single solitary incident. Every traumatic event comprises of three distinct stages. 1) circumstances leading up to the event. 2) The trauma itself 3) the circumstances following the incident both short and long term and the time following the event is the most critical because the quality of contact and help the victim receives greatly influence the outcome of the incident onto the victim.
In most traumatic events the most potent emotions are of anger and fear but in terms of sexual abuse there is another component of shame. All these emotions have evolved for survival purposes but in order to find reconciliation from a traumatic incident it is important to let go and discharge these emotions. One can experience fear through crying, screaming etc. Anger through talking loudly, showing anger physically but there is really no outlet for shame unless one has a support system where a person feels safe and accepted. Most of the time the trauma for sexual abuse victims does not get resolution because they are ostracized and blamed for what has happened to them and never find the acceptance they need to resolve their issues.
 Any way, i ll write a more thought out post about this in a few weeks once i am done with my book. If any one is interested its called, "The body remembers, the psychophysiology of trauma and trauma treatment by Babette Rothschild."