Dr. Robyn Koslowitz

Maybe she's, oh no, they will like me.

I'm going to figure out how to be as ingratiating as possible.

And I'm going to become a real people pleaser, but I'm going to make friends.

Maybe she's going to like really embrace the, I don't care about society.

I'm nihilistic and I don't care about anybody and lash out in some way.

Her brain is going to do one of those things.

There's a lot of options that her brain can do in order for her to feel like this is a safe world that I know how to operate in.

And once her brain does that, once your brain creates that trauma app, it just rehearses that response over and over again, because that's the only response that feels safe, that works, that you know how to do.

So for me, like dissociate, like whenever you feel stressed, just go into this like sort of compartment in your brain where you're thinking about something else.

You're fine.

And any experience that makes your brain develop a trauma app is traumatic.

It doesn't matter if it fits on some checklist or if it's ripped from the headline.

It doesn't matter if it's something that other people would say, oh yeah, that's for sure traumatic.

Or if other people would say, I don't know why that's traumatic.

It's the impact on you that matters and your sense of safety.

If it's too big for your brain to metabolize, it's traumatic.

That's just the way it is.

Sure.

And this really came from years of doing post-traumatic parenting classes and talking to parents and realizing that they fit into these categories.

Not everyone fits into one category.