What Do We Feel - or REMEMBER Feeling?? | celainn's Blog

I found a fascinating article here:

http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2009/02/re-visiting-what-happens-during-life.html

about "“stress-induced analgesia", IE, how the body may go utterly numb when faced with trauma and how it's only AFTER the trauma that pain returns. 

Also stated in the article is the fact that the PANIC that goes hand-in-hand with such pain is also gone. 

I can attest to this.  And I know there are many of you who will laugh at me for stretching this article about physical pain to include the trauma of emotional abuse as well, but I still think it applies here.

I remember with UTTER clarity what happened 25-30 years ago, (or at least I remember what my mind has TOLD me happened) and above all I remember the calmness, the lack of panic on my part as I watched those I love being emotionally torn apart by my father. 

Did I hide?  Yes.  Did my mind tell me to run?  Very possibly.  But those are all hind-brain reactions.  I did not scream or cry.  I don't recall any emotions whatsoever.  My mind was blank.  I thought of nothing else but survival - living to see another day, and I wasn't actually WORRIED over it, I just wondered about it.  

I remember thinking very clearly

"Hmm, I wonder if the police will come."  I also recall wondering if fate would take a hand in the events.

"Maybe he'll fall down the stairs." I can recall thinking.  Not WISHING for it, really, but it was in the back of my mind as a possibility, because that's the only way I ever thought it could end.

I bet for or against my father's demise as if I was betting on a horse race.  So yes, not much emotion there.  Not at the time.  Not, incidentally, for quite a LONG time.  I was as much a zombie in school as I was at home. 

So anyway, yes.  A fascinating article.  Go read it!