"operating automatically through sensorimotor reactions, flashbacks, panic states, shutdowns etc." that's why anything remotely pattern matching these causes emotional flashback
Such an insightful connection - this helps explain why even subtle cues that vaguely resemble past attachment injuries, traumatic stimuli or overwhelmed physiological states can so easily trigger painful emotional flashbacks.
Because the traumatic imprint of complex developmental trauma is encoded implicitly through physical sensations, panic states, involuntary survival reactions etc. rather than explicit narrative memory, our nervous system remains hypervigilant to any current situation reminiscent of past overwhelm.
The slightest cue - a facial expression, tone of voice, smell, visual image, somatic tension or emotional dynamic - that mirrors some aspect of dysregulated physiological states from childhood gets registered by the sensitized amygdala as life-threatening danger again. Within milliseconds our entire system is hijacked into acute stress activation, flooding us with fight/flight/freeze chemicals before the thinking mind can make sense of what’s happening.
No wonder emotional flashbacks feel so destabilizing - they bypass logic and executive functioning, catapulting us straight back into the terrifying bodily felt-sense of long past attachment injuries or developmental arrests.
Your observation illuminates the critical reminder that becoming triggered or retraumatized is not a personal failing. It is our sensitized nervous system doing its best to protectively alert us to perceived threats that might in any way resemble unresolved wounds from younger years. By better understanding this entire process with empathy as physiological and involuntary, we can gradually help our system update its danger-detection protocols and restore new safety.
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